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Communal Riots: 2010

2011-01-20T08:17:00.000+05:30

By Asghar Ali Engineer

No year in India has been riot-free. Some years like 1992-93 post Babri Masjid demolition, 2002 in Gujarat witness major communal catastrophe, 2008 in Kandhamal riots or some years witness riots which are not nationally taken notice of. The year 2010 of course did not witness riots like Mumbai in 1992-93 or one like in Gujarat in 2002 but did witness riots mostly in either middle level cities or even small towns and villages.

However, some riots were really disturbing and also one cannot be oblivious of ever increasing trend of communalization due to all out efforts being made by RSS and its other outfits. Even a moderate party like the Congress has felt danger from communalism and tried to focus attack on communal BJP in its own interest. The BJP may not be upfront in promoting communal politics for various reasons not to be discussed in this article but is using other organizations of Sangh Parivar to do so. The BJP is in power in a few states and it is going all out to promote RSS in these states and also to recruit people with the RSS background in various government services which itself is great danger to our secularism.

The Congress focusing on communalism in its 84th session is more symbolic than substantial. It is still not ready to take on communal bull by its horns but is fighting it rather sheepishly. The Congress is the only national party with secular ideology but is not honest as it should be in fighting menace of communalism. Otherwise there is no reason why India cannot be riot-free.

According to the Home Ministry data between 2001 and 2009 6,541 communal clashes occurred and 2,234 persons were killed. Though the number of communal clashes may be correct officially the number of casualties is never reported accurately in official records for various reasons. In 2002 in Gujarat alone, all non-official sources agree, was 2000 dead and official sources are showing number of deaths between 2001 sand 2009 i.e. over a period of 8 years as 2,234 i.e. minus Gujarat total number of dead over a period of 8 years in all only 234 persons died which can hardly be accurate. But if we take official figure of dead in Gujarat riots of 2002 as 1000, then over a period of 8 years 1234 people died i.e. more than 150 people per year which is not so small, after all.

In 2009 the last riot had taken place on 30th December in Bhilwada, Rajasthan. This year too Rajasthan witnessed two horrible riots. The Sangh Parivar is doing everything possible to convert Rajasthan into Gujarat and Rajasthan is already on its way to becoming one. Maharashtra too is communally very sensitive state though it has always been ruled by the Congress except for one term i.e. from 1995 to 2000 by the Shiv Sena-BJP. The first riot in 2009, as per our record, took place in Evatmahal, Maharashtra on 16th January. The apparent cause was the rumour that Shivaji’s and Bal Thackeray’s photographs have been blackened in the College Chowk. The Shivsainiks came out on the road and started pelting stones on shops, buses and other vehicles. The police, however, brought the situation under control without any loss of life. The police arrested 50 Shivsainiks for rioting.

Karnataka, especially South Karnataka, is another communally sensitive area. The Ramsena has become hyper active since the BJP came to power. Both Christians and Muslims are being attacked in this state. Attacks on churches and mosques have increased. On 31st January Churches were attacked in Bhatkal and Mysore and a glass painting of mother Mary was attacked in Mangalore. Apart from this in Mangalore two mosques, one orphanage, one shop and one house also came under attack. One student was injured in an attack on the orphanage.

Next Shimoga in Karnataka and Bareilly in U.P. experienced communal violence on the occasion of Prophet’s birthday. In Shimoga the provocation came when a Kannada paper Kannada Prabha published Kannada translation of Taslima Nasreen’s article. Taslima Nasreen denied having anything to do with it. It was an article on burqa which was originally written in English in 2006 and it was a distorted translation according to her. Shimoga and Hassan experienced communal violence and both towns were put under curfew. Though there was no loss of life properties and vehicles were set to fire. Curfew was enforced and extended for two days to contain the situation.

Barielly in U.P. also saw communal violence on the occasion of Prophet’s birthday. On March 2 Muslims were to take out Julus-e-Muhammadi i.e. Prophet’s birthday procession. There were thousands of Muslims in the procession when some Hindus objected to procession being taken from a particular route. Bareilly has no history of communal violence. Both sides were throwing stones and attacking vehicles and houses.

It was difficult or 300 constables to contain the huge mob and hence imposed curfew which helped bring the situation under control. However, on March 8 the police arrested Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, President Ittahid-e-Millat Council for delivering provocative speeches in the procession. When Muslims protested he was released on 11th March. Then the Hindus protested and said he was released under pressure from Muslims and fresh trouble broke out on 12th March.

Since Holi and Prophet’s birth day coincided Muslims decided to take out julus two days later but Shabani Mian of Anjuman-e-Khuddam-e-Rasul did not agree to defer and hence for last two years two processions were being taken out and this year it resulted in communal eruption. There are various conjectures as to why Bareilly suddenly erupted which had remained quiet even after demolition of Babri Masjid. Some say Mayawati felt insecure as the Congress was performing well and that she had secret understanding with the BJP to polarize Hindu and Muslim vote. It is true that the Congress and BSP are at logger’s head and would not mind engineering communal violence. Communal violence is a political phenomenon, not religious one.

Thus Bariely remained under curfew for a long time which it had not witnessed before and sustained huge losses of property. This riot, mainly due to rivalry between Congress and BSP assumed national importance and this issue was raised even in Parliament also.

Next it was turn of Hyderabad on 30th March. Hyderabad old city is communally highly sensitive thanks to rivalry between Majli-s-Ittihadul Muslimin and BJP. In the old city poorest of poor Muslims live along with Hindus some of whom are traders and supporters of BJP. Most of the poor Muslims support the Majlis. Majlis is trying to increase its political clout and hence decided to celebrate Prophet’s birth day on a grand scale and even went to the extent of creating a copy of the Prophet’s mausoleum in the old city which had never happened before.

It also decorated old city and the area remained under illumination and decoration for long after the Barawafat i.e. Prophet’s birth day. The BJP, not to be outdone, celebrated Hanuman jayanti on a big scale and created huge sized statue which was not the tradition. It led to tension when the BJP workers tried to remove Prophet’s birth day flags and decorations and clashes occurred.

There were other factors besides this rivalry between the Majlis and BJP. New Chief Minister Rosaih had taken over after death of Rajshekhar Reddy in the helicopter accident and his son Jaganmohan Reddy was aspiring to become C.M. but the congress high command chose Rosaiah. Many were of the opinion that he was behind the riots trying to destabilize Rosaiah. Yet there was another theory that some big builders engineered the violence as land prices are skyrocketing in the old city and builders are interested in big development projects by getting the land vacant through engineering violence.

There was yet another theory that the BJP wanted to increase its base in the area and so far it has not tested power in Andhra Pradesh though it is already in power in neighbouring Karnataka and hence it sent VHP cadre to provoke communal violence to consolidate the Hindu vote. It is said that these people came on motorcycle and injuries inflicted were of the same kind.

This riot was also of major kind and persisted for a whole month and old city remained under curfew for that period greatly inconveniencing the poor who could not even go out for work. There was shortage of food, milk and vegetables. Various NGOs came out to render some help to the poor. These are the political games which politicians play and subsequently poor suffer. Two persons were killed in stabbing incidents besides huge property losses.

The attacks from outside were such that several young Muslim boys of 9 to 14 years of age formed defence squad and tried to scare away attackers from outside who entered the old city to engineer violence. A student from U.K. carried out study of this spontaneous defence squad and read out a paper on her field study in the Asia conference in Australia in which I was also present. These young boys acted spontaneously and no political party or agency had organized them. This communal violence continued for whole month i.e. up to beginning of April.

Agra in U.P. came under spell of communal violence on 25th April when 25 shops were set to fire as rumour spread that some people teased some girls. It took communal form and these shops happened to be in Shivaji Market of Fort area. However, authorities denied that it was communal in nature. But it seems it was communal in nature two groups belonged to two different communities.

Dhule in Maharashtra too is sensitive area which has witnessed worst riots earlier too. Outside collector’s office there appeared a poster with the cartoon of the Prophet of Islam on 4th May which provoked Muslims to protest. The police fired on the agitating mob and also lathicharged thus injuring more than 4 people were injured and several more in lathicharge. During stone pelting vehicle of Dy.S.P. was also damaged. However, Minister in charge of Dhule Abdus Sattar convened peace committee meeting and violence was stopped.

It is so funny that in India even 60 years after independence and our secular Constitution communal violence breaks out on small and very insignificant issues like in Amalner Maharashtra where riot broke out on 19 May on the question of grinding spices in a grinding mill. The floor mill belonged to a Muslim and a Hindu customer wanted his spices to be grinded on priority basis and resulted in a bitter exchange and violence broke out in which Muslims were targeted The Police had to fire in the air to disperse the mob and two persons were injured in firing. Even the police came under attack and 9 of them were injured.

Jodhpur in Rajasthan witnessed communal violence on 23rd May near Balesar village. The dominant community of Sainis attacked police station after member of this community died in a police firing after damaging an Idgah. The incidents took place after dispute over removal of a particular shop for road widening. Then the labourers working on NREGA scheme damaged the portion of the Idgah.

Then came the turn of Ahmedabad where communal violence erupted on 26th May. One person was killed in acid attack in Shahpur area. Shopkeepers immediately downed their shutters. Tension spread to other areas of the city, as knives and swords were out and two people were stabbed. The clashes began when a marriage procession passed by a mosque at prayer time. Eleven people were injured when rival groups stoned and police was forced to fire. One of the injured Vijay Datania died in the hospital triggering fresh violence. It was alleged by People’s Union for Civil Liberties that the Modi Government was mainly responsible for communal violence and a delegation of PUCL met Governor to intervened and stop violence.

The communal violence however, continued to spread in other areas and later in Chalte Peer Ki Dargah area an armed mob of masked boys slashed a scooterist’s throat barely 15 feet from police station. In retaliation armed mob set two motor bikes on fire.

Again it was in Rawer of Jalgaon District, Maharashtra that communal violence broke out on the question of eve teasing on 2nd June. The police first resorted to lathicharge and then to firing to disperse the mob. (12 persons were injured in stoning and firing. After the incident of eve teasing a mob attacked the Mastanshah Masjid. Three policemen were also injured in communal incidents. The mob attacked several shops and properties belonging to Muslims

Malegaon experienced communal unrest when news spread that 6 dead cows were found on the road. Malegaon would have exploded if the police had not countered the rumour. The cows were not killed or slaughtered by any one but they died of suffocation while being transported. Some Hindutvawadis published on internet bodies of badly injured cows by doctoring these photographs to incite violence. But it did not work. People refused to be provoked. Malegaon, otherwise, is highly sensitive area.

Sarada town in Udaipur district erupted on 24-25 July after two drunk gangsters fought one of them Muslim and the other a tribal as Sarada happens to be a tribal area. The VHP, RSS and BJP exploited this incident o the hilt and provoked tribals into seeking revenge and distributed arms to them and all of them were made to gather near Muslim area and it all happened the Congress ruled state that 70 houses belonging to Muslims were burnt right in the presence of S.P. and District Magistrate.

Also about 500 Muslim families were dishoused in 6 other villages in this district. One Congress M.P. and his MLA wife were also present when these houses were burnt and destroyed. They belonged to the same tribal group. Thus tribal loyalty proved to be stronger than ideological loyalty. What is worse the Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, supposedly a secular man did not take any action against guilty S.P. and D.M. despite repeated representation to him by human rights activists. Muslims are very angry with Gehlot for deliberately not taking any action. I also personally told him when I met him at P.M.’s house in Delhi in a meeting but he had no convincingly reply. Instead he promoted the S.P., a tribal from North East and transferred him. He even refused to hold a judicial inquiry. Not only that even adequate compensation was not offered to those who lost everything they possessed. Paltry amounts were offered and when Muslims refused police intimated them into accepting.

Since the BJP has lost elections in Rajasthan it is trying to use communal card to come back to power. The Congress is not ready even to understand this. It appears Gehlot is not interested in controlling communal elements in Rajasthan and giving them full latitude to do what they want and going totally unpunished.

Ratlam in M.P. which is normally a peaceful town came under communal spell after some people threw cow dung on a mosque which was being painted on 4th September. This led to clashes between Hindus and Muslims. Muslims set fire to a motorcycle. Thereupon people from another community came on the streets with weapons and began to set fire to motorcycles and other vehicles. One section of the city came under spell of violence. However, then the police intervened and brought about reconciliation between warring groups.

On 6th September Deganga, West Bengal saw communal violence when Rahul Gandhi was to begin his tour of West Bengal. Haji Nurul Islam is accused of presiding over a four hour mayhem on September 6 in Deganga that led to destruction of properties belonging to Hindus and the desecration of a temple. A rattled Trinamool has launched an investigation into the matter. The violence that started on September 6 and continued uptil 9 despite deployment of Army, was triggered by erection of a wall around a Muslim cemetery at Kartikpur that Hindus said blocked entry to a temple and pandal of Durga puja. Nurul-n-Islam led a march to the police station and on the way mob damaged houses and shops.

But then Muslims decided to submit memorandum to the police. This again led to Hindus gathering with weapons and forced their entry into nearby Muslim houses and began to damage them. On Kalalseri some houses were damaged and a tractor and a tempo were set afire. However, the police officer fired 6 rounds in air to control the situation. But even then the crowd continued to commit violence for quite sometime. Thus properties worth several lakhs were destroyed.

This time Malerkotla went through a bout of communal violence though Malerkotla is a place known for communal harmony as it was Nawwab of Malerkotla who had saved the children of the 10th Guru Govind Singh and hence Sikhs did not harm Muslims of Malerkotla even in 1947 partition riot and this is the only district in Punjab from where Muslims did not migrate to Pakistan.

It was on September 12 that bout of communal violence took place after the Qur’an burning incident in the US was to take place. Since a Christian priest in the US was to burn copies of Qur’an a church was vandalized in Malerkotla after the Eid celebrations. The police had to impose curfew. The angry mob also burnt a police motorcycled. The police had a tough time controlling the angry mob. Muftyi Fazlur Rehman who appealed for peace said that the disturbances were politically motivated. He also maintained that events were pre-planned. After the news of disturbances in Malerkotla the Christians in Ludhiana blocked the entire area and similarly Muslims also gathered near Jama Masjid in Ludhiana to protest against the burning of Qur’an in US. The unruly mob set ablaze the office of the forest department and two police vehicles in Poonch after four people get injured when police fired warning shots in the air and lobbed teargas shells. In Jammu region the mob burnt effigies of Barrack Obama.

Finally District Jhalawad in Rajasthan came under spell of communal violence on 20th September after tribals provoked by the Sangh Parivar ransacked Manoharthana and few other villages after a tribal girl was raped by three Muslim boys. Most of the Muslims lost everything and had to leave Manoharthana with clothes they were wearing. Everything else was burnt or looted. We heard their woes and those of Sarada village in Udaipur district on 12th December in a Jansunwai (public hearing). In Manoharthana too the police did not act and allowed Adivasis (tribals) to burn and loot.

The Sangh Parivar is communalizing tribals and dalits and using them for indulging in communal violence. In Manoharthana the two factions of BJP were involved. Thus it was factionalism within BJP which became one of the causes of the communal violence in Manoharthana, Rajasthan. Also, BJP is making all efforts to convert Rajasthan into Gujarat and Congress ruling party is quite oblivious of this.

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2009-09-09T16:07:00.000+05:30

ANALYSIS

Caning, flogging and starving

By Rafia Zakaria

It's been an eventful summer for Muslim women around the world. On August 14, 2009, Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed into law the Shia Personal Status Law, making it legal for Afghan men to starve their wives if they refused to have sexual relations with them. On July 29, 2009, Lubna Ahmed Hussein, a widowed Sudanese journalist, was threatened with forty lashes by Sudanese authorities for having worn dress pants in a public place. Finally, to look forward to next week, the caning of Malaysian model Kartika Shukarno for drinking beer in a nightclub in the eastern Malaysian state of Pahang.

Consider first the Shia Personal Status Law enacted into law by President Karzai, assumedly to appease a hard-line Shia cleric. The law not only grants exclusive rights to child custody to the father or grandfather but also requires women to ask for their husband or father's permission before leaving the home. The only time a woman would be allowed to leave home without such permission is if she has reasonable legal reasons, which are conveniently left unspecified.

Other provisions of the law are even more alarming. In the words of women's rights activist Wazhma Frough, “the law allows men to even deny food or any support to their wives if they refuse to have sex with them”. Other provisions of the law allow also make it possible for men to legally marry children enabling the custom of child marriage pervasive in rural Afghanistan.

According to Afghan female parliamentarian Shinkai Karokhail, the current law is still an improvement from the previous version which had made it impossible for women to leave the home without male permission under any circumstances and required them to have sexual relations with their husbands once every four days.

Moving on to Sudan, where Lubna Hussein, a journalist, was arrested on July 3, 2009 along with eighteen other women because she was wearing dress pants. There was nothing provocative about the tailored pants that fully covered her legs and yet Lubna Hussein stands threatened to be sentenced to forty lashes under the charge of “being dressed indecently”. Her name has been put on a travel blacklist by the ruling regime and she is now prohibited from leaving the country.

Ten of the women who were with Ms Hussein at the time of the arrest chose to plead guilty to “indecency”, paid a fine and were lashed ten times. Ms Hussein and another woman have chosen to fight the charges to bring attention to the plight of tens of thousands of women who have been lashed in the past decade under the country's indecency laws. The Islamist government in Sudan has routinely imposed draconian laws on Sudanese women to testify to their “Islamic” credential regardless of the law's actual relationship with Islamic doctrine. In the words of Ms Hussein: “These laws were made by this current regime which uses it to humiliate the people and especially women. These tyrants are here to distort the real image of Islam.”

Finally, take the case of Malaysia, a functioning democracy, relatively speaking, where Islamic courts function alongside civil courts. The consumption of alcohol is forbidden to Muslims but permitted to the country's Christian and Hindu minority. Ms Shukarno has been fined the equivalent of $1,400 and six strokes with a rattan cane. Ms Shukarno, who is married and a mother of two, was found guilty of drinking a beer in a hotel bar. In the northern Malaysian state of Kelyantan, Muslim women have also been forbidden from wearing bright lipstick and high heeled shoes that may make noise in order to promote public morality. According to Mohamed Isa Ralip, president of the Shariah Lawyers Association of Malaysia, it's not about causing pain, it is about educating others and about teaching the person a lesson.

The three contexts under discussion are undoubtedly different in demography, culture, geography and historical context. But they are all post-colonial Muslim states fraught with a crisis of authenticity that consistently leads them to believe that public displays of religious piety are at the core of religious practice. What easier targets to centre these expressions of piety and pristine public morality than the private and public behaviour of women?

The Afghan law essentially gives the state the right to enter the private sphere of the family and control even what happens between husbands and wives. It legislates essentially the nature of the relationship and creates a particular power dynamic that makes the woman an appendage to a man with her duties circumscribed entirely and completely by her gender. Political machinations aside, the law is an expression of an unapologetic patriarchal system where such subjugation enshrined in law is considered an expression of Afghan Islamic identity, legislated and signed into law through democratic process.

Similar tactics underlie the Sudanese and Malaysian cases. Ultimately, both represent the relegation of public morality as a task to be accomplished through legislation and enforced through instruments of the state such law courts. The underlying logic of all three cases is that if all temptations are forbidden by law, then all need for individual conscience will conveniently be eviscerated. The assumption is that in a perfect Islamic society, there would be no need for an individual conscience at all. If women are covered from head to toe, it is assumed, few would be tempted to engage in sexual promiscuity. If there is no bright lipstick, noisy high-heeled shoes, and women dressed in pants, it seems all Muslim men will suddenly become better believers and more eligible for heaven. If wives submit easily, can never refuse sex and are forced by the state to obey their husbands, then it is assumed men will be even less likely to covet other women.

The injustices in these scenarios are numerous, from the public subjugation of Muslim women as an expression of a society's piety to the fact that the system is designed entirely to facilitate the journey of men (not women) to heaven. But what is most notable in the framework is the desire on the part of Muslim publics in all three countries to have the state as a stand in for the conscience of the individual believer.

The lack of questioning of the blatant disregard for gender disparity so visible in all of these incidents is not the only cause for deep dejection. Equally disturbing is the desire to make being a good Muslim not an issue of individual effort but of robotic obedience. Few bother to ask whether giving Zakat, and abstaining from alcohol or sexual promiscuity really are exercises of obeying Divine Guidance when they are enforced by the state and are not questions of free will. Are robotic Muslims lulled into obedience by the threat of starvation, the fear of being caned or flogged at the same level of religious devotion as those who freely choose to abstain from forbidden acts?

Women and their subjugation have become the visible symbols of Islamic statehood and the piety of the Muslims that live in them. Instead of outrage, such incidents are met with approbation and lauded as efforts to Islamise society. If the worth of women and the tragedy of their subjugation is not enough for Muslims to be shocked out of their apathy, then perhaps the notion of a lulled ummah cornered into obedience out of fear rather than religious devotion should be.

[Rafia Zakaria is an attorney living in the United States where she teaches courses on Constitutional Law and Political Philosophy. She can be contacted at rafia.zakaria@gmail.com]

2009-09-09T16:06:00.000+05:30

Islam at crossroads: Who's to blame?

By M. Rajaque Rahman

It has become almost fashionable for a Muslim to say 'Islam is in danger'. The religion whose literal meaning is peace is today seen as the root cause of terror and violence. The Muslim world cannot merely dismiss this as a fallout of a grand conspiracy against Islam by people of other faiths. It has failed to present the real essence of Islam and remained a mute spectator to many atrocities against humanity committed in the name cleansing the world of infidels.

This diffidence to stand up for Islam is mainly due to lack of clarity among Muslims about what their religion truly stands for. The Muslim world is heavily weighed down by its own blinkered interpretation of what's permitted and forbidden in Islam. The most glaring misinterpretation that has led to a distortion of the very essence of Islam is its understanding of the ex-pression 'La Ilaaha Illallaah', which is the first principle of Islam. Literally translated, it means 'there is no god but God'.

However, generations of Muslims have been taught to interpret it as 'there is no god but Allah'. Thanks to this limiting interpretation, Muslims are made to believe that there are many gods, but only Allah is the right one. This understanding totally distorts Islam's real message of tauhid (oneness of God).

A case in point is the recent statement of chairman of National Fatwa Council of Malaysia Abdul Shukor Husin while passing a fatwa against yoga. "Many Muslims fail to understand that yoga's ultimate aim is to be one with a God of a different religion." When one has affirmed to 'La Ilaaha Illallaah', how can a Muslim think of another "God of a different religion".

If a Muslim thinks there are different Gods for different religions, he is negating the essence of Islam and unwittingly subscribing to polytheist beliefs. 'La Ilaaha Illallaah' establishes beyond argument that there is only one God. However differently we may pray and by whatever name we may call, it goes to that one source. Further, the Quran clearly states that God can be invoked in different names. "Glory be to God, beyond any associations. He is Allah, the Creator, the Evolver, the Bestower of Form. To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names." [Al Hashr 59:22].

Despite the clear pointers in the Quran, orthodox mullahs still hold that calling God by any other name than Allah amounts to associating a partner with Him. The biggest casualty of this exclusivity of Allah has been the concept of jehad, prompting innocent Muslims to believe that fighting against 'infidels' who don't call God by Allah is an act worthy for the Quranic promise of heaven for jehad. This amounts to challenging Quran's command to invoke God by any names with a sense of reverence and beauty.

This myopic interpretation of the concept of tauhid has had a domino effect on other spheres of life. Take the case of recent fatwas forbidding yoga for Muslims on the ground that yoga will erode their faith in the religion.

As the Quran and Hadith have nothing specific that will make practice of yoga haram, the ulemas based the ruling on their own fear of supposedly 'Hindu' elements of yoga destroying the faith of a Muslim. The best way to allay their fear is to look at the Hindu philosophy on yoga and see how and where it contradicts the tenets of Islam.

Yoga simply means uniting with the Self. Maharishi Patanjali's Yoga Sutras starts by calling itself an enunciation in union. The asanas, the practice of which is the focal point of these fatwas, are just one way of attaining that union. Is striving for such a union with the Self against Islam? It cannot be. For, Prophet Mohammed has said, "He who knows his own Self knows his Lord." Anything done in pursuit of knowing the Lord will count as a meritorious act of following the Prophet.

The best explanation of why yoga is not just permissible, but also desirable for Muslims is to be found in the second sutra of the Yoga Sutras. "Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodhah." It means yoga is stopping all the modulations of the mind. Ceasing all the outward activities of the mind and reposing in Allah is the ultimate goal of Islam. So doing yoga asanas as a means of attaining a thoughtless state will qualify as the highest form of ibadat (prayer). Hence contrary to the fatwas, yoga as a spiritual pursuit is very much permissible in Islam.

It's universally proven that yoga brings peace of mind, and on that count yoga is almost obligatory for Muslims. As Islam means peace, peace of mind is a prerequisite for one to be truly following Allah's only religion.

This leaves only one ground for orthodox mullahs to frown at yoga: that yoga stems from polytheist beliefs of Hinduism. But when yoga means union, how can it be linked to polytheist beliefs? In fact, yoga takes one away from polytheism and leads to Advaita, which is in perfect agreement with the doctrine of tauhid.

The time has come for ulemas to dispel this mistaken understanding of the real essence of Islam. Else history will accuse them of doing a great disservice to Islam and unwittingly leading innocent Muslims towards polytheism.

[M. Rajaque Rahman is a former business journalist and now teaches yoga-based spiritual programmes of the Art of Living. He can be contacted at rajaque@gmail.com]

Buttering up Nitish government: Muslim journalists’ favourite pastime in Bihar

2009-09-02T12:46:00.001+05:30

By Saroor Ahmed

Sycophancy has its limit. And when one crosses it s/he loses all the self-respect. But the journalists and opinion-makers, in Bihar, especially Muslims, are caring little about it and are indulging in bootlicking of a unique sort.

Not to speak of Urdu media, which even fear to publish the comment of the opposition leaders, Muslims working in English and Hindi Press are going to any extent to come up with fantastic stories about the so-called performance of the Nitish Kumar government.

Read these opening lines of the story filed by Faizan Ahmad, the Times of India’s special correspondent in Patna: “Sometimes incentives make a world of difference. Even when it comes to education. Take for instance the state government’s cash incentive to Muslim students: money sure has helped mint merit. The scheme has resulted in a record jump in the number of Muslim students securing first division in the Matriculation exams.”

Then in the very second paragraph of the same story published on August 13, 2009 he quoted Shahid Ali Khan, the minister of minority welfare in the Nitish Kumar government: “The increase is over 100 per cent and the credit goes to the state government’s policy of giving cash incentive to each Muslim student passing out with a first division.”

The news story goes on to state that “The Nitish Kumar government in 2007 announced a reward of Rs 10,000 to each Muslim student securing first division at the Matriculation exam. That year a total of 2,627 Muslim students had passed out with first division. In 2008, this number swelled to 5,800 and in 2009 the number shot up to 11,500.”

Wait a moment and read what Khan told the same newspaper in the same news-story: “Students of 2008 batch will be handed over the reward money very soon and applications are being collected from the 2009 first divisioners.”

May one ask Faizan Ahmad and Shahid Ali Khan as to how is it that the Muslim students performed so well and the number of first divisioners got doubled when according to them they have not got the reward money of 2008, not to speak of 2009?

The big question is if the Muslim students did not get a single penny how is it that the number of first divisioners got doubled. Both the minister and the journalist tried to cheat the readers by hiding a very important fact. The number of not only the Muslim first divisioners have increased, but the performance in general has improved because unlike in the past the Bihar State Examination Board has now introduced the CBSE pattern of questions. Earlier the pattern of question was subjective, therefore, the percentage of those passing the examination and securing first division was much less.

It needs to be mentioned that 19.60 per cent of the Muslim students who passed in 2009 secured first division. The general percentage is 19.53 per cent. It also needs to be made clear that when the scheme was announced by the chief minister Nitish Kumar on November 11, 2007 it was none else but the alliance partner the BJP, which publicly issued statement opposing it. Even the finance department reportedly objected to it. And then too the argument was that the percentage of Muslims securing first division is slightly better in Bihar than the general, therefore, why should they be given incentive or reward. How was the percentage of Muslim first divisioners better than general in 2007 when the examination was held in March of the same year and the chief minister’s announcement came in November?

But the minister shamelessly went on to state in the Times of India story: “This sense of competition has yielded good results.” He further said that the scheme will motivate Muslim children to join schools.

The minister and journalist tried to take the readers and Muslim community for granted. The fact is that the state government did not even publish the form for applying for the reward money. Not to speak about this so-called reward for the first divisioners the state government has not published a single form for the four central government scholarships for minority students though the Centre created a separate fund for it. Not a single form of Post-Matric, Pre-Matric, Merit-cum-Means and Professional Courses scholarship was published in the last two years. The Centre announced these scholarship after the recommendation of the Sachar Committee report.

It is the organizations like Al-Khair Charitable Trust, Students Islamic Organization and Bihar Rabita Committee which jointly formed the Alpsankhiyak Chatwirti Morcha (Minority Scholarship Front), collected donation from the people and published and distributed thousands of forms to the students. In 2008 the central fund meant for the scholarship was allowed to lapse on March 31, 2008. This prompted the Morcha to stage a sit-in dharna near Patna’s busy Income Tax roundabout on April 23, 2008. It was only after this protest that the forms of the students submitted in the state minority welfare department were sent to the Centre. And even when the cheques came from the Centre to the state government it took months to be distributed among the beneficiary students.

This year too all the forms were published by the Morcha. The state government failed to renew the scholarship of the students of Professional Courses who got money last year. They are supposed to get scholarship till their course is completed. As there was no announcement, no advertisement and no notice from the state government about these scholarship––though the Centre has earmarked separate fund for publishing forms, giving newspaper ads and other related works––according to sources out of total quota for Bihar in Pre-Matric scholarship only one-fifth could apply this year. The last date of submission of forms was August 15 and they would now be sent to the Centre for the release of amount. Sources said that though Bihar’s quota was 1,60,000 the number of applications received is something between 30,000 and 32,000.

This is just a tip of an iceberg about scholarships. The real story is known to both the minister and journalist. But they are true clever by half and are befooling none, but themselves. Shahid Ali Khan, being a minister, is paid for being loyal to his chief minister, Nitish Kumar. But can a journalist like Faizan Ahmad go to such an extent. He is paid to publish the real story not to butter up the powers that be. But in the name of journalism this is happening now in Bihar.

Ramadan or Mah-e-Seyam: A month of Fasting, Charity and Piety

2009-09-01T14:58:00.003+05:30

Ramadan like the other months in the Islamic lunar calendar begins with the sighting of the new moon over the horizon. Depending on the geographical locations, it appears with a difference of a day or two in various parts of the world pronouncing the arrival of the holy moments.

The Moon in the Islamic Calendar

Ramadan, also known as Mah-e-Seyam, the Holy month of fasting is 9th month in the Islamic calendar that succeeds Shaaban and precedes Shawwal. Any month in the Islamic calendar always begins and ends when after completing the full circle the new moon appears again over the horizon. A month can be of twenty nine days or thirty days but can never be of twenty eight days or thirty one days, as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) has said: “The month (can be) 29 nights (i.e. days), and do not fast till you see the moon, and if the sky is overcast, then complete Sha'ban as thirty days.” (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Abdullah bin Umar)

At another place the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) has said:

“Do not fast (for Ramadan) before the coming of the month until you sight the moon or complete the number (of thirty days); then fast until you sight the moon or complete the number (of thirty days).” (Abu Dawood, Narrated by Hudhayfah)

Describing the new moon, Quran says: “They question you about the new moon. Tell them: it is to determine the periods of time for the benefit of mankind and for the Hajj (pilgrimage).” (Surah Al Baqara, Ayah 189)

Because the important prayers and obligations are associated with these months, we normally look for the new moon on three occasions. (1.) When Ramadan begins. (2.) When it ends. (3.) When begins Dhul Hijja - the month of Hajj.

After sighting the new moon on these occasions, while it is acceptable to greet each other, as a Muslim we need to recite the Dua (the prayer) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) has advised us as confirmed by the following: When the Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) saw the new moon, he said: "A new moon of good and right guidance; a new moon of good and right guidance; a new moon of good and right guidance. I believe in Him Who created you" three times. He would then say: "Praise be to Allah Who has made such and such a month to pass and has brought such and such a month." (Abu Dawood, Narrated by Qatadah)

At another place, it is reported: When the Prophet, peace be upon him, saw moon he would say, "Allah is the Greatest! O Allah, make it shine upon us in peace, faith, security, safety, and with the power to do what You love and are pleased with! O moon! Your Lord and our Lord is Allah." (At-Tabarani, Reported by Abdallah bin Umar)

In this Dua lies an important point. When we say O moon! Your Lord and our Lord is Allah, we admit that like us the moon is also the creature of the Almighty Allah. Hence as it follows the Lord despite not being as accountable to the Almighty as we are, we must also follow Him in every respect.

Ramadan, the Holy Month

After the new moon appears over the horizon pronouncing the beginning of Ramadan, blessings of the Almighty begin to shower on us. Allah's Apostle said: "When the month of Ramadan starts, the gates of the heaven are opened and the gates of Hell are closed and the devils are chained." (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Abu Huraira)

It is also reported that every night and at the time of Iftaar – the time when we end the fast, Allah Almighty forgives.

The main thing one should keep in minds that unlike Hajj that is performed only in the month of Dhul Hijja there is no prayer in Ramadan that is not being offered in other months. The difference is just of importance and obligations. The most important prayer that one performs in Ramadan is Saum or Fasting that is obligatory for every Muslim. Quran says: “O believers! Fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you so that you may learn self-restraint.” (Surah Al Baqara, Ayah 183)

Describing the importance of fasting, the Prophet said: "Whoever established prayers on the night of Qadr out of sincere faith and hoping for a reward from Allah, then all his previous sins will be forgiven; and whoever fasts in the month of Ramadan out of sincere faith, and hoping for a reward from Allah, then all his previous sins will be forgiven." (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Abu Huraira)

At another instance, Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Ramadan, a blessed month, has come to you during which Allah has made it obligatory for you to fast. In it the gates of Heaven are opened, the gates of al-Jahim are locked, and the rebellious devils are chained. In it Allah has a night which is better than a thousand months. He who is deprived of its good has indeed suffered deprivation." (Narrated by Abu Hurayrah Al Tirmidhi. Ahmad and Nasa'i transmitted it)

Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) has also said: "When the first night of Ramadan comes, the devils and the rebellious jinn are chained, the gates of Hell are locked and not one of them is opened; the gates of Paradise are opened and not one of them is locked; and a crier calls, 'You who desire what is good, come forward, and you who desire evil, refrain.' Some are freed from Hell by Allah, and that happens every night." (Narrated AbuHurayrah. Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah transmitted it. Ahmad transmitted it from a man. Tirmidhi said this is a gharib tradition)

Virtues of Suhur (pre-dawn meal), Saum (fast) and dos and don'ts while fasting

Saum i.e. the fast begins with Suhur – the pre-dawn meal and ends with Iftaar – the food taken at the dusk. Taking Suhur is Sunnah and though it is not mandatory, Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings be upon him) had advised the Ummah to take the pre-dawn meal i.e. Suhur to begin the fast. Describing the virtues of Suhur the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Take Suhur as there is a blessing in it.” (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Anas bin Malik)

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) also termed it as the difference between the fast of the Muslims and of those from other faiths. As he said: “The difference between our fasting and that of the people of the Book is eating shortly before dawn.” (Sahih Muslim, Narrated by Amr ibn al-'As)

At another place the Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him) said: “I used to take the "Suhur" meal with my family and hasten so as to catch the Fajr (Morning Prayer) with Allah's Apostle.” (Sahih Al Bukhari Narrated Sahl bin Sad)

There is no special Dua for Suhur. One can very well begin Suhur by reciting Bismillah and end it with any Dua that is normally recited after taking lunch, dinner or any other food. Likewise, you don’t need to verbally intend to begin your fast. Niyyat or intention has to be in heart and except Hajj and Umrah there is no other prayer for which verbal intention is required.

The best time for Suhur is just before Azan-e-Fajr. Those who take this pre-dawn meal very early or those who take it very late, both are wrong. In following tradition Zaid bin Thabit described the suitable time for Suhur: “We took the 'Suhur' (the meal taken before dawn while fasting is observed) with the Prophet and then stood up for the (morning) prayer. I asked him how long the interval between the two (Suhur and prayer) was. He replied, 'The interval between the two was just sufficient to recite fifty to Sixth 'Ayat.'” (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Anas)

Once finished with Suhur now we are fasting and while fasting we are under the continuous divine blessings. The Almighty Allah has promised unique reward for the fasting people. He Himself says: “Fasting is Mine and it is I who give reward for it. [A man] gives up his sexual passion, his food and his drink for my sake. Fasting is like a shield, and he who fasts has two joys: a joy when he breaks his fast and a joy when he meets his Lord. The change in the breath of the mouth of him who fasts is better in Allah's estimation than the smell of musk.” (Hadith Qudsi)

And the Prophet said: “Fasting is a shield (or a screen or a shelter). So, the person observing fasting should avoid sexual relation with his wife and should not behave foolishly and impudently, and if somebody fights with him or abuses him, he should tell him twice, 'I am fasting."

The Prophet added, "By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, the smell coming out from the mouth of a fasting person is better in the sight of Allah than the smell of musk. (Allah says about the fasting person), 'He has left his food, drink and desires for My sake. The fast is for Me. So I will reward (the fasting person) for it and the reward of good deeds is multiplied ten times.” (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Abu Huraira)

Dos and Don’ts while fasting

While fasting what one should do and what one shouldn’t? A fasting person should do every good work and should refrain from every evil. If a fasting person doesn’t refrain from evil and foul talk, his fast would be unacceptable. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

“Whoever does not give up false statements (i.e. telling lies), and evil deeds, and speaking bad words to others, Allah is not in need of his (fasting) leaving his food and drink.” (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Abu Huraira)

While fasting if anyone eats or takes any food by mistake then there is no harm on him. As soon as he realizes his mistake he should stop and continue with his fast. The Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him) said: “If somebody eats or drinks forgetfully then he should complete his fast, for what he has eaten or drunk, has been given to him by Allah.” (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Abu Huraira)

At another occasion the Prophet said:

“Neither vomiting, nor emission, nor cupping breaks the fast of the one who is fasting.” (Abu Dawood, Narrated by a man from the Companions)

Saum i.e. the fast ends with Iftaar at the time of sunset. As the sun sets, one should immediately complete the fast without waiting further. The Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him) was used to end his fats with dates. It is better if one follows the Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him) and ends the fast using dates. But it is not mandatory. One can take water, milk or whatever food easily available to end the fast. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “When one of you is fasting, he should break his fast with dates; but if he cannot get any, then (he should break his fast) with water, for water is purifying.” (Abu Dawood Narrated by Salman ibn Amir)

Like Suhur, there is no special Dua for Iftaar also and one should end the fast reciting Bismillah. The time for Suhur and Iftaar both are very important. These are the times one Allah the Almighty listens to one’s prayers. Let us pray to Allah that He bestow on us the power to utilize these precious days to seek forgiveness from Him.

Tarawih

Tarawih, the Special Night Prayer, is normally offered in congregation during Ramadan. Tarawih, the Special Night Prayer is the first prayer that Muslims offer immediately after the new moon pronounces the beginning of the Holy month Ramadan. Tarawih is sunnah for both men and women, and they are to be performed after the obligatory Isha prayer and before the performance of the witr. They should be prayed in sets of two rakat each. It is allowed to pray them after witr, though, this is not the best thing to do. They may be performed until the end of the night.

The prayer that lasts for more than an hour is offered in congregation. Men, women and children throng the mosques in their vicinity to catch this important prayer. Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings be upon him) during his lifetime had led this prayer in congregation on three consecutive nights. On fourth, a large number of companions were waiting for Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings be upon him) to lead the night prayer as he had done in last three nights. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) however did not come out. The next morning he said that the prayer that they offered in congregation was enjoyed by the Almighty Allah so much so that he feared the prayer would be made obligatory. This was why he did not lead the prayer on fourth night. The incident is reported by Aisha, the respectable wife of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and the mother of believers in Sahih Al Bukhari:

"One night Allah's Apostle offered the prayer in the Mosque and the people followed him. The next night he also offered the prayer and too many people gathered. On the third and the fourth nights more people gathered, but Allah's Apostle did not come out to them. In the morning he said, 'I saw what you were doing and nothing but the fear that it (i.e. the prayer) might be enjoined on you, stopped me from coming to you.' And that happened in the month of Ramadan." (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Aisha Siddiqua)

Before and after this incident the companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) were used to offer this prayer individually or in smaller groups. It continued even after his death and also during the tenure of Abu Bakra, the first caliph. Second Caliph Omar when he came in power however advised the people to offer Tarawih in congregation. Since then the Muslim Ummah is offering this prayer in congregation everywhere in the world. Imam Bukhari has reported this in his Sahih: Allah's Apostle said, "Whoever prayed at night the whole month of Ramadan out of sincere Faith and hoping for a reward from Allah, then all his previous sins will be forgiven."

Ibn Shihab (a sub-narrator) said, "Allah's Apostle died and the people continued observing that (i.e. Tarawih offered individually, not in congregation), and it remained as it was during the Caliphate of Abu Bakr and in the early days of 'Umar's Caliphate."

'Abdur Rahman bin 'Abdul Qari said, "I went out in the company of 'Umar bin Al Khattab one night in Ramadan to the mosque and found the people praying in different groups. A man praying alone or a man praying with a little group behind him. So, 'Umar said, “In my opinion I would better collect these (people) under the leadership of one qari (reciter) (i.e. let them pray in congregation!).”

So, he made up his mind to congregate them behind Ubai bin Ka'b. Then on another night I went again in his company and the people were praying behind their reciter. On that, 'Umar remarked, “What an excellent Bid'a (i.e. innovation in religion) this is! But the prayer which they do not perform, and sleep at its time is better than the one they are offering.” He meant the prayer in the last part of the night. (In those days) people used to pray in the early part of the night." (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Abu Huraira)

Tarawih, Qayamul Lail or Tahajjud

Tarawih is not any new prayer that is offered in Ramadan. In fact this is same as Tahajjud or Qayamul Lail or the Night Prayer that is normally offered every night during the entire year. The companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) were used to offer this prayer in congregation, and for hours. So much so that some of them were used to get exhausted. Hence what they would do. They would offer four Rakah and then take rest for a while before offering the remaining four Rakah. Due to this people started referring this Tahajjud or Qayamul Lail in Ramadan as Tarawih, the Arabic world that means taking rest.

Tarawih is Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and is not obligatory. It can be offered individually or in congregation. If a person has memorized enough parts of the Holy Quran, he can offer Tarawih alone if he wishes so. Those who cannot recite from Quran, can join for Tarawaih so that they can at least listen to the Holy Book.

It is believed that Holy Quran had been descended on Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings be upon him) in Ramadan. It doesn't mean the entire Quran was descended on the prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in Ramadan. The Quran in fact has been descended on the prophet (peace and blessings upon him) in parts. It was Ramadan when Mohammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was made prophet and the first five Ayah of Surah Alaq were recited to him. Recitation of the Holy Quran in Ramadan hence becomes more significant, and part or whole of the Holy Quran is recited by Huffaz – the people who memorise the Quran while offering Tarawih prayer.

Number of Rakat in Tarawih

Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was used to offer the night prayers for hours and during Ramadan or in other months he used to offer eleven rakat as Tahajjud and Tarawih. Aisha the respected wife of the prophet and the mother of the believers confirmed this, as reported in Sahih Bukhari, in a very clear term:

I asked 'Aisha, "How is the prayer of Allah's Apostle during the month of Ramadan." She said, "Allah's Apostle never exceeded eleven Rakat in Ramadan or in other months; he used to offer four Rakat – do not ask me about their beauty and length, then four Rakat, do not ask me about their beauty and length, and then three Rakat." Aisha further said, "I said, 'O Allah's Apostle! Do you sleep before offering the Witr prayer?' He replied, 'O 'Aisha! My eyes sleep but my heart remains awake!' (Sahih Al Bukhari, Narrated by Abu Salma bin Abdur Rahman)

So it is better for us if we offer Tarawih lengthy and eleven rakat.

Some people think if they finish the entire Quran in seven or ten or fifteen days, then they don't need to pray Tarawih. This is wrong. Tarawih is nothing to do with the complete recitation of Quran. It has to be offered during entire Ramadan.

Moreover, those who have already offered Tarawih prayer, they don't need to offer Qayamul Lail again as we have already noted that Tarawih and Qayamul Lail are same and in Ramadan as well as other months, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) never exceeded eleven rakat.

Can there be a Category called Dalit Muslims?

2009-08-31T16:19:00.001+05:30

By Imtiaz Ahmad

On the face of it, the ex-pression Dalit Muslims would appear to be a contradiction in terms. It is commonly held that Islam is an egalitarian religion and there are no status differences among Muslims. As such, there is no question of the prevalence of untouchability among them and a category called Dalit Muslims cannot be said to exist. This is the standard line that is handed down whenever any reference to Dalit Muslims is made.

This would be a perfectly understandable position to take were it not for the fact that considerable evidence exists to suggest that a category called Dalit Muslims does exist in India. Ghaus Ansari argued on the basis of evidence from the decennial censuses that Muslims in India were divided into three broad categories that he called the ashraf (noble born), ajlaf (mean and lowly) and arzal (excluded). Each of these categories was further divided into a number of groups which, following the practice of the decennial censuses, he chose to designate as castes. Since Ansari was relying on the evidence supplied by the decennial censuses, he could not examine the process of mutual interaction among these castes. He generally suggested that the three broad categories he had identified constituted a hierarchy in which the castes were ranked in an order of social precedence. How this hierarchy was constituted and what was the basis on which the rank order was settled were questions that Ansari could not discuss on account of the limitations of the data he used.

More focused research on social stratification among Muslims in the early seventies and subsequently relied upon empirical methods, painstakingly collecting information on actual, day-to-day interactions among the Muslim communities. This research succeeded in providing a more grounded picture of the situation of the groups whom Ansari had called arzal. It demonstrated that in terms of day-to-day social interactions the arzal existed on the margins of society. Even so, the range of dimensions of interaction that this research explored was restricted to areas of commensality, endogamy and sociality. It showed that the arzal engaged in the lowly occupation of scavenging, confined their marriages within the group and were excluded in the villages as well as the towns into separate residential quarters in which members of the other categories did not live. This research also noted the existence among the arzal communities of a system of internal government and social control with a hereditary official who regulated the life of group members and punished any transgressions of group norms besides settling domestic or intra-group disputes. Since much of this early research was focused on local communities, villages and towns, and covered groups falling into what Ansari had designated as arzal and ajlaf, the range of information on the arzal communities does not go beyond this limited range. For example, it is silent on the exclusion of the arzal communities in the ritual and religious spheres as well as on whether the religious specialists who cater to the ashraf and ajlaf communities also minister to them.

One question raised by this research was how the presence of groups whom Ansari had called arzal be explained. Should they be seen in strictly occupational terms as practitioners of a distinct occupation that in their case happened to be lowly and demeaning without status connotations? Or, should it be seen as arising from more fundamental and intrinsic considerations requiring evaluation of groups into a ranked social order? Opinions on this significant point were substantially determined by how one viewed the position of Islam in relation to social stratification. Those who took the position that Islam was against any social stratification and posited the inherent equality of all human beings tended to represent the presence of arzal communities as merely an occupational division without any status implications. From their point of view, the disabilities and exclusion characterizing the arzal communities applied to individuals and were relevant only in the occupational realm. Once their members move outside the occupational realm they are on par with everyone else. Others did not flatly take the position that Islam was against social stratification. They viewed the existence of arzal communities as reflecting a system in which groups were ranked as superior and inferior and individuals carried the burden of their group status through having to suffer disabilities and exclusion as members of groups.

Since the most elaborate ex-pression of a system of social stratification wherein groups are ranked as superior or inferior and individuals are forced to carry the burden of their group status is found in the caste system, one way of characterizing the presence of arzal communities could be in terms of caste. However, since Islam in popular imagination is seen as the harbinger of social equality, such characterization is open to contestation on ideological grounds. This has precisely been happening in sociological research on the arzal communities. At the behavioural level, sociologists are willing to concede that there are elements of caste in Indo-Muslim society. However, as soon as the discussion shifts from behaviour to ideology they recoil form their position, seeking to add caveats or hedge around the issue by admitting unabashedly that when they apply the term in the context of a Muslim group they are using it in a loose sense. Two recent writings by Husnain and Nazir exemplify this tendency most eloquently.

Husnain locates his discussion in the context of the question whether the concept of caste can be applied to the system of social stratification of a community professing a faith other than Hinduism. His conclusion is bald and simple: It is true that the egalitarian social order of Islam stands in sharp contrast with the ideology of caste yet the Indian Islam and Hindu Caste System have been able to achieve a substantial compatibility. He then goes on to offer a host of explanations for why this should be the case. He writes:

"Hutton sounds convincing when he says that when Muslims and Christians came to India, the caste was in the air and the followers of even these egalitarian ideologies could not escape the infection of caste. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of Indian Muslim population comes form the lower Hindu castes who have been coming into the fold of Islam to escape from social persecution and the oppressive socio-economic disabilities. They were also attracted and lured by the social egalitarianism of Islam but the search for equality proved a mirage. In many cases there were improvements in their socio-economic condition yet the goal of social equality remained illusive. Moreover, in most of the cases the people embracing Islam gave up their religious faith but not the caste that was brought forward even to a new socio-religious milieu. Thus, it would be apt to say that while Islam may not be having castes or caste-like groupings, the Indian Muslims do have."

No sooner that he has made this sociological formulation, Husnain becomes uncomfortable. As if fearing that he might have committed an almost sacrilegious act by declaring that there is caste among Indian Muslims, he wishes to recoil from it. Cryptically, he adds: "But in the present paper an attempt is being made to stay clear of the issue whether the model of social stratification among the Indian Muslims is the replica of the Hindu caste system or not. The author, in this paper, shall be using the term caste and caste system among the Indian Muslims in a conveniently loose manner. It is undisputed that there are groups of people among the Muslims who are organised more or less like the Hindu castes but this is also true that many of them are less rigid because Islam, theoretically at least, permits marriage between different classes of believers."

Not only that. He looks for crutches that would enable him to perform this summersault. He finds one in the following statement of Nazir, which he quotes approvingly: ". . . . It is necessary to make a distinction between a caste system and caste labels: the former refers to a local system of hierarchically ordered corporate groupings involving division of labour, occupational specialisation, unequal dependence, and recruitment by birth only; the latter refers to a set of non-local, non-corporate named groups which provide a ranking hierarchy, and which do not involve occupational specialisation, unequal dependence, and recruitment by birth only."

Perhaps, concludes Husnain, the caste system and caste like groupings among the Indian Muslims with all its fluidity may be better analysed and better understood through this observation.

This assumes that Hindus live under the caste system. Muslims only use castes labels. Several theoretical and empirical questions are raised by this assumption. First, how is this assumption made? Is it made on the basis of a piece of empirical research? Or, is it made on entirely a priori grounds. As far as I am aware, there has to date been no empirical research which can be said to have established beyond the shadow of a doubt that Muslims do not live under a caste system and only use caste labels. Indeed, if such empirical research existed, the dilemma these authors (and others) face over how to characterise Muslim social stratification in India would not exist. It exists because available empirical research has demonstrated that social stratification of Muslim communities in India and beyond is marked by features of the caste system. It is, therefore, clear that the assumption is made on a priori grounds. As believing Muslims committed to upholding the widely proclaimed Islamic egalitarianism as axiomatic, they cannot face up to the behavioural reality that Muslims live under a caste system. They not only assume the distinction between the caste system and caste labels but go on to suggest that it constitutes a viable framework for analysing and understanding Muslim social stratification in India. It is used as a smokescreen to avoid facing the harsh behavioural reality of caste among Muslims in India.

Second, is there an empirical basis to the assertion that Muslim social organisation in India is a set of non-local, nor-corporate named groups which provide a ranking hierarchy, and which do not involve occupational specialisation, unequal dependence, and recruitment by birth only? Nazir does not make explicit the level at which he is talking. Is he talking about the categorisation of Muslims into the broad categories of ashraf, ajlaf and arzal. If that is his point of reference, then his characterisation of Muslim social organisation as a set of non-local, non-corporate groups can be said to have some validity. However, it would invalidate the distinction between the caste system and caste labels since similar broad division exists in the form of varna categories in the caste system. Ansari used the three broad categories of ashraf, ajlaf and arzal in the collective sense but clearly recognised that they were divided into smaller named groups that were distinguished from one another by occupation, endogamy and sociability. Thus, if Nazirs reference is to the groups at this level, then his description of Muslim groups is wholly erroneous. Let us look closely at the empirical evidence in order to determine whether the distinction he posits between the caste system and caste labels, and by implication between Hindu and Muslim modes of social organisation, is confirmed by available studies.

Sociological research on Muslims in India as opposed to lay and impressionistic writings continues to be thin. Evidence brought together by Ahmad (1973) and subsequent research demonstrates that Muslim groups which are the point of reference here, for which words biradari and zat are commonly used, are local and corporate entities. Even biradaris or zata such as Saiyyid, Sheikh and Ansaris, which are dispersed widely and found in different parts of a district, state or the county, are identified by their affiliation to a particular territory and restrict their marriages to members within that territory. Of course, how that territory is distinguished varies widely. For Sayyids, Shiekhs and Pathans, which resent being characterised as biradaris and prefer to be described as zats, the association to territory is expressed through appending the name of the territory to its name. Thus, one hears of Sayyids of Satrikh, Sheikhs of Allahabad, Kidwais of Baragaon or Kasauli and Pathans of Malihabad. In the case of biradaris that have an internal organisation of government and social control (called biradari or zat panchayat) this territorial association is defined by the jurisdiction of the biradari panchayat. The Ansaris in Rasulpur, where I carried out fieldwork, were divided into concentric circles of three and thirteen villages. They confined their marriages to thirteen villages though Ansaris existed in neighbouring areas as well.

This is not all. Considerable evidence exists to show that the biradaris or zats are associated with particular occupations, are inter-dependent (tied into patron-client relationships of the jajmani type), and are endogamous. This does not mean that all members of a biradari or zat necessarily practice the occupation with which their group is traditionally associated. There has been much variation throughout history among biradaris and zats, as indeed there has been within castes, in the extent to which their members remain tied to the practice of their traditional occupation. Biradaris and zats higher up in the social hierarchy did not usually have a traditional occupation and there was no close association between biradari or zat and traditional occupation. On the other hand, biradaris and zats further down the social ladder had traditional occupations and their association with occupation was strong. This was not significantly different from the picture of groups in what Nazir would characterise as the caste system. Risleys following observation makes this explicit:

In theory each caste has a distinctive occupation, but it does not follow that this traditional occupation is practised by its members . . . . The traditional occupation of the Brahmans is the priesthood, but in practice they follow all manner of pursuits. Many are clerks or cooks, while some are soldiers, lawyers, shop-keeprs and even day-labourers, but they remain Brahmans all the same. The Chamars of Bihar are workers in skin, but in Orissa they are toddy-drawers. In Orissa and the south of Gaya the Dhobi is often a hewer of splitter of wood. In Bihar and Bengal the Dom is a scavenger or basket maker, but in the Orissa states he is a drummer or basket maker and has nothing to do with the removal of nightsoil: in Chittagong and Assam he is a fisherman, in Cashmere a cultivator and in Kumaon a stone mason.

The argument that Muslim groups, biradaris and zats, are not based on recruitment by birth only is equally fallacious. Like the groups in what Nazir would call the caste system, Muslim biradaris and zats are based on recruitment by birth only. There is no process by which one can become a Saiyid, Shiekh or Julaha except that of birth. It is for this reason that when someone marries into another biradari or zat, he is not integrated into another biradari or zat but retains his or her original biradari or zat association. There exists a possibility in the case of biradaris and zats to attempt social mobility and end up becoming a Sayid, Shiekh or Pathan in course of time through inventing a rationale and a genealogy. Where such social mobility occurs, the basis of recruitment to the biradari or zat does not change. The biradari or zat just ends up becoming another biradari or zat, and comes to be known by another name, to which recruitment continues to be based on the principle of birth. This is again not significantly different from the situation in the caste system where castes have the possibility of changing their antecedents and name through the process of social mobility. Thus, the point that both biradaris and zats are less rigid, because Islam, theoretically at least, permits marriage between different classes of believers is not empirically established. It is commonly asserted without a substantial basis in any empirical research.

This raises fundamental questions. Why Husnain and Nazir as well as a host of other researchers who have worked on the sensitive question of the existence of caste among Muslims are so strongly persuaded to posit that there are significant differences between the caste system and the system of biradaris and zats? Is it that these differences actually exist but empirical research has so far failed to unearth them? Or, is it that they are persuaded into asserting these differences contrary to empirical evidence out of extraneous considerations? Is it that they are prone to emphasising these differences because as believing Muslims they are familiar with the Islamic discourse that asserts that Islam preaches social equality and are afraid to take a contrary position? Or, is it that asserting these differences is a defence mechanism whereby they can simultaneously adhere to their disciplinary obligation as social scientists as well as their religious obligation to uphold what is commonly considered the Islamic view on social stratification? My own view has been that the tendency to emphasise differences between the caste system and the system of biradaris and zats arises from some such considerations, but I would refrain from making any such point here. I would like, instead to explore whether their starting point that Islam is an egalitarian religion and preaches social equality theologically and sociologically valid. This is central to understanding their standpoint.

There is need to ask three different questions of the Islamic text if we are to understand Islams position with respect to social stratification and social equality. First, whether Islam is opposed to social stratification as such or is merely opposed to social inequality. Second, what is truly the Islamic attitude towards social inequality that existed in the society in which Islam evolved and took root. Finally, whether the social equality that it proclaims, and to which reference is always made when it is suggested that Islam is an egalitarian religion, is a description of an existing state of affairs in society or is merely an ideal that is given to mankind as a direction in which it should strive. It is necessary to ask these questions in order to understand the nature of the emphasis on egalitarianism and social equality in Islam. Basic to these questions is the sociological dictum that no society beyond the most primitive in the sense of lacking any kind of economic surplus can be truly egalitarian. This was the point at the heart of Veblens Theory of the Leisured Class wherein he argued that as societies generated economic surplus there almost always developed some form of social stratification. Of course, Veblens concern was an analysis of the lifestyle and consumption pattern of the class that controlled the economic surplus and the symbolic and behavioural ex-pressions of its privileged position. Even so, the substantive theoretical point of his analysis was that once a society starts generating economic surplus some form of social stratification is bound to emerge. Pitirim A. Sorokin articulated this point as a general statement:

“Any organised social group is always a stratified social body. There has not been and does not exist any permanent social group which is flat, and in which all members are equal. Unstratified society, with a real equality of its members, is a myth which has never been realised in the history of mankind. This statement may sound paradoxical and yet it is accurate. The forms and proportions of stratification vary, but its essence is permanent, as far as any permanent and organised social group is concerned.”

On even the most casual reading of the Islamic scriptural text one is struck that quite irrespective of the emphasis it places on equality of human beings Islams orientation is remarkably hierarchical. Its hierarchical orientation comes in a wide variety of fields. First, the relationship of the believers with non-believers is conceived in strictly hierarchical terms with the believer, the dhimmi and the kafir constituting a clear hierarchy. Second, the relationship of Allah to the believer is conceived in hierarchical terms. It is a relationship of subordination and subservience so much so that the individual believer must prostrate before Allah in daily prayers and must at the same time see himself as utterly powerless in relation to Him. Any number of passages exist in the Islamic scriptural text that endorse the relatively lowly standing of the believers, whether as individuals or as a collective entity, in relation to Allah. Second, the relationship of the wife to her husband is clearly conceived in hierarchical terms even if the text does not distinguish between them in terms of the religious duties enjoined upon them. This is sometimes cited by Muslim feminists and Muslim modernists to argue that Islam guarantees equality of gender and does not place a Muslim woman in any inferior position to a man. However, in reality a woman is subordinate to a man and the relationship between them is seen as constituting a hierarchy wherein the woman stands in relation to a man in the same position as the individual stands in relation to the community and the community stands in relation to Allah. Fatima Mernissi characterises this orientation of Islam in relation to women by the concept of nusuz, which implies an unequal relationship. Islam makes a distinction between the wives of the Prophet and other women and the responsibilities placed on them are also distinctly varied. Indeed, the Quranic verse that orthodoxy used at a later stage in the development of Islam to impose the custom of veiling for Muslim women originally related to the wives of the Prophet. Finally, the relationship between the master and slave is conceived in clearly hierarchical terms even if the master is called upon to deal with the slave with kindness and merit is assigned to those who would free their slaves. Thus, it is clear that the framework of Islamic thinking is deeply imbued with the notion of hierarchy and social stratification.

It is true that the Arab society in which Islam evolved did not possess great differences of wealth, but economic differentiation between ordinary Bedouins and the trading classes did exist. One can easily imagine that they would have differed with respect to their wealth, material possessions and lifestyles and Islam could not have brushed them under the carpet. It would have been required to deal with them, as they would have been reflected in their behaviour and mutual attitudes. As far as the Islamic scriptural text is concerned, it clearly recognises such distinctions in society and prescribes appropriate forms of behaviour for each. It asks those deprived in social and economic terms to be content and to live according to their means. It is repeatedly said in the text that Allah is All-seeing and would reward the poor for their poverty on the day of judgement. At the same time, the wealthy and rich, while they are allowed to live in their riches and to spend according to their economic standing, are warned not to be too proud of their material possessions. Moreover, they are asked to show kindness to those who are deprived and poor and to part with a portion of their wealth and income for the poor. Even the poor are conceived in hierarchical terms: first come the near ones followed by orphans and then the destitute and the deprived. If some kind of social stratification had not existed in society, Islamic scriptural text would neither have referred to those differences, nor indicated appropriate forms of behaviour for them. It would also not have sought to device an economic framework for the redistribution of wealth in a manner that the poor and able to meet both ends meet. It is, thus, clear that the emphasis that Islamic scriptural text places on social equality does not describe an existing state of affairs.

If the worldview of the Islamic scriptural text is hierarchical and it admits of social and economic differences in society, then how should we interpret its emphasis upon social equality? One way to interpret this can be to ignore that Islamic orientation is hierarchical and to argue that it stands for egalitarianism as an absolute value. I would argue that those who maintain that Islam contemplates no social stratification are interpreting Islam in precisely this way. Even when they encounter social differentiation and stratification, they glibly ignore it and flash the proclaimed egalitarianism of Islam as a social reality. The other way of interpretation can be to recognise a fundamental difference. This is the difference between the society as it exists and as it ought to exist and to maintain that the Islamic proclamation in favour of social equality is more in the nature of an ideal for the future than a description of an existing state of affairs. My own position is that drawing this distinction is important in any consideration of the question of the presence or absence of caste and caste-based social stratification in Indo-Muslim society. It enables us to see that a distinction has to be made between the society which exists, and where caste- or class-based distinctions may exist, and a future state of society where they are expected to disappear and give rise to an egalitarian society. This distinction applies to Islam as much as to any other ideological system that proclaims social equality as an ideal.

This distinction should not be entirely unfamiliar to us in India. As is well known, Indian society has been the most unequal society, the social inequality being institutionalised in the caste system. Indias constitution went on to declare India to be a casteless and classless society. In so doing, the constitution was not proclaiming that social inequalities of the past had entirely disappeared and the society was egalitarian from the time it was promulgated. The only sensible way would be to recognise that, while social inequalities persist, the ideal that the Constitution provides is that of egalitarianism. This is also true of Islam. It proclaims social equality to be an ideal, but recognises social inequalities existing in society. By this token, there is no contradiction between Islamic support for an egalitarian society as a future goal and presence of caste or class differences as a social reality.

Social realities have a way of prevailing over sociological and theological formulations. Contrary to the argument of some sociologists and most theologians that caste does not exist among Muslims and untouchability is disallowed in Islam, the ex-pression Dalit Muslims has been finding increasing mention in the discourse of traditionally backward Muslim communities in recent years. However, there does not yet exist any clear understanding of what this ex-pression actually means or which castes or groups it is supposed to denote. On the one hand, it has been used to denote a whole range of Muslim castes which are currently included in the category of the Other Backward Classes. On the other hand, it has been used to denote those Muslim castes or groups which converted from the untouchable Hindu castes or are so severely stigmatised and are subjected to such extreme forms of social exclusion that would render them comparable to the Scheduled Castes.

The Mandal Commission compounded and reinforced this confusion. As is already well-known, the Commissions task was to identify Other Backward Castes and to determine whether they should be eligible for reservation along the lines of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. There was no difficulty in this with respect to Hindu castes because administrative policy clearly recognised a distinction between Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Castes. Because the presidential order of 1950 clearly and arbitrarily laid down that No person wo professes a religion different from the Hindu religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste, the Mandal Commission lumped the severely stigmatised and extremely excluded among the Muslims with Muslim Other Backward Castes for purposes of affirmative action. Therefore, when the urge for equality and social justice seized the imagination of the lowest social groups in other religious traditions and the word Dalit came to be seen as a short-cut carrier of that aspiration, the ex-pression Dalit Muslims came to be used for a wide variety of groups other than those severely stigmatised and excluded and on that ground comparable to Hindu ex-untouchable castes for whom the term Scheduled Castes was reserved.

One can arrive at an assessment of the extent of confusion that prevails at present with respect to the ex-pression Dalit Muslims by reading between the lines in the statements of those claiming to speak on their behalf as well as by considering the castes that they have been tempted to include under that category. N. Jamal Ansari writes: . . . it is an established fact that Indian Muslim community is divided into castes and has a large deprived section. . . . Before discussing constitutional provisions in respect of Dalits and exclusion of all Dalit Muslims from those provisions, I think we must define Dalit Muslims. Dalit means downtrodden, oppressed, suppressed and backward. Also, Dalit stands for untouchable and depressed classes. The term Dalit applies to members of those menial castes that have been graded lowly which they have inherited by accident of birth. Likewise, Ali Anwar [18] uses the words pasmanda (meaning downtrodden and backward) and Dalit interchangeably and includes under Dalit Muslims castes like Bhatiyara, Tikyafarosh, Itafarosh, Halalkhor, Khakrob, Mogalzada and Chirimar only some of which can be said to be severely stigmatized and excluded. In all such statements and lists, as their reading suggests, the ex-pression Dalit Muslims has been used as a generic term to denote all Muslim castes that are educationally and socially backward.

Clearly, there is need to define Dalit Muslims in more precise terms. Ansari suggested in his early work that the relationships between the ashraf and ajlaf on the one hand and the arzal on the other were shaped by considerations of social distance taking on the characteristics of untouchability. He mentioned that the members of the category called arzal were excluded both physically and socially. From a physical point of view, they tended to inhabit excluded localities and did not mix with the members of the other two categories. When it came to social intercourse, their relationship was characterized by strict maintenance of social distance and deference so that the members of the arzal communities had minimal and limited interaction with the members of the other communities. The ex-pression should be restricted to refer to these castes alone. Since the ex-pression Dalit has come to acquire pejorative connotations, though it was originally used by the Dalit Panthers Movement as a short-hand way of referring to the extremely deprived and excluded castes, many Muslims may not like that ex-pression to be used in the context of Muslim castes. Even so, there is need to recognise that the castes to whom we have here referred to as Dalit Muslims do form a class separate from the other categories of Muslim castes and need to be distinguished on account of the extreme degree of stigmatisation and exclusion suffered by them.

There is need for rich and focussed ethnographic research on such castes. This research should seek to understand the attitudes of the non-arzal castes and groups toward the members of the arzal category and to gauge the extent and intensity of discrimination suffered by them today. It is possible that with the introduction of sanitary toilets and other technological changes the arzal castes no longer engage in the demeaning and defiling occupation of scavenging but social distance from them continues to be maintained. It is also possible that the forms of discrimination and stigmatisation practised against the arzal castes have changed, but they may have taken other forms. Only focussed social research can indicate the contemporary situation of the arzal castes in contemporary Muslim society.

(Courtesy: DalitMuslims.com)

Halal: The most humane slaughter

2009-08-31T16:12:00.001+05:30

By Syed Ashraf Ali

The great festival of Eid-ul Adha, popularly known in this subcontinent as Bakrid, is celebrated by the Muslims all over the world on the tenth of Dhul-Hijja every year through sacrifices and prayers in memory of the glorious sacrifice of the prophets Ibrahim Khalilullah and Ismail Zabihullah (peace be upon them).

Millions of cattle are slaughtered on this auspicious day with a view to receiving the Divine Mercy through benevolence, Samaritanism, patience and constancy. This noble effort is, however, condemned by many ignorant non-Muslims, shrouded by total ignorance about the significance and sublime essence of Qurbani, as an act of wanton cruelty. What is more, the Islamic practice of slaughter or sacrifice by slitting the throat with a sharp knife has come under attack by some animal rights activists as being an inhuman form of cruelty to animals.

It is claimed that the slaughtering of an animal with a knife is the most painful and tortuous method of killing. Nothing can be farther from the truth. It has been established beyond any shadow of doubt, through impartial scientific experiments conducted in non-Muslim countries, that the Islamic method of slaughtering with a knife is the least painful and thus the most humane method of killing an animal.

An animal is being stunned in a slaughterhouse in BrazilIn most of the Western countries, it is required by law to stun the animals with a shot in the head before the slaughter. It is done with a view to rendering the animal unconscious and thereby preventing it from reviving before it is killed so as not to slow down the movement of the processing line. It is also used from a humanitarian point of view. It is presumed that this stunning prevents the animal from feeling pain before it dies. But research conducted in a non-Muslim country like Germany has come out with very surprising findings which nail to the counter the allegations against the Islamic method of slaughtering with a knife.

The intensive research conducted at the School of Veterinary Medicine, Hanover University in Germany was headed by Professor Wilhelm Schulze. He was assisted by Dr. Hazim. The study was named: "Attempts to objectify pain and consciousness in conventional (captive bolt pistol stunning) and ritual (Islamic method of cutting with knife) methods of slaughtering sheep and calves."

The results were most unexpected to the non-Muslim Westerners. The claim that the CBPS (Capital Bolt Pistol Stunning) method was least painful and most humane dashed to the ground. The findings testified to the fact that the slaughter of an animal with a sharp knife is the least painful and most humane of all methods of killing.

In the study several electrodes were surgically implanted at various points of the skulls of all animals under experiment, touching the surface of the brain. The animals were allowed to recover for several weeks.

Some animals were then slaughtered, according to the Islamic method, by making a swift, deep incision with a sharp knife on the neck cutting the jugular vein and the carotid arteries as well as the trachea and esophagus. Other animals were stunned with the aid of a 'Captive Bolt Pistol' (CBP).

During the experiment an electroencephalograph (EEG) and an electrocardiogram (ECG) recorded the condition of the brains and the hearts of all the animals during the course of slaughter and stunning.

The results were as follows:

Slaughtering with a knife (The Islamic Method)

1. The first 3 seconds from the time of the slaughter (in the Islamic Method) as recorded on the EEG did not show any change from the graph before slaughter, thus indicating that the animal did not feel any recognisable pain during or after the incision.

2. During the following 3 second, the EEG recorded a condition of deep sleep-unconsciousness. This is due to the large quantity of blood gushing out of the body. The sudden and profuse bleeding from the incision on the neck causes a shock resulting in a state of unconsciousness due to severe shortage of blood supply to the vital centers located in the brain.

3. After the above-mentioned 6 seconds, the EEG recorded zero level, showing no feeling of pain at all.

4. As the brain message (EEG) dropped to zero level, the heart was still pounding and the body convulsing vigorously (a reflex action of the spinal cord) driving out a maximum amount of blood from the body, thus resulting in hygienic meat for the consumers.

Captive Bolt Pistol (CBP) Stunning Method

1. The animals were apparently unconscious soon after stunning.

2. But EEG showed severe pain immediately after stunning.

3. The hearts of animals stunned by CBP stopped beating earlier as compared to those of the animals slaughtered according to the Islamic method, resulting in the retention of more blood in the meat. This in turn is unhygienic for the consumer.

CBP Method and mad cow disease (MCD)

The Western method of stunning animals with a shot in the head is not only severely painful, as shown by the above experiment, but it is also alarmingly unhygienic. There is rising concern (based on the findings of some researches) that the method may be a factor in the spread of Mad Cow disease (MCD) from cattle to human beings.

Two independent researches carried out recently at the Texas A & M University and by Canada's Food Inspection Agency discovered that a method called Pneumatic Stunning (in which a metal bolt is fired into the cow's brain and followed by a pulverising burst of 150 pounds of air pressure) delivered a force so explosive that it scattered brain tissue throughout the animal's body. The findings are really disturbing since brain tissue and spinal cord are the most infectious parts of an animal with Mad Cow Disease which causes Swiss cheese like holes in the brain of the infected animal. It is all the more alarming because 30 to 40 per cent of the American cattle are stunned by pneumatic guns before the slaughter.

As for the most modern method of electric stunning being practiced in many developed countries, the Meat Inspection Branch of the United States Department of Agriculture came to the following conclusion in 1953: "The use of electric stunning methods by plants which operate under federal meat inspection has not been permitted as a result of experiments which were conducted several years ago at the University of Chicago. These experiments indicated that electric stunning in hogs resulted in certain changes in the tissues which could not be differentiated by gross examination from similar changes produced by disease."

In 1955 the Danish Ministry of Justice issued a circular, which said, "Stunning with electricity causes extravasations in meat, sanguinary intestines and fracture in the spinal column, pelvis and the shoulder blades through shock. The blood in the meat makes it more susceptible to putrefaction and has a detrimental effect upon its taste. The properties of the meat which would co-operate with the salt in extracting the blood traces are interfered within the animal undergoing shock convulsions prior to slaughter."

In 1954 British regulations were amended and electric stunning was prohibited, "the reason being that stunning seriously affected the quality of British bacon."

It was also observed: "Electric stunning hastens the onset of putrefaction in meat. The explanation of the phenomenon lies in the high lactic acid level following electric shocks prior to bleeding. High lactic acid alters the bacterial resistance of meat."

If the head of the animal is severed by one sharp blow through guillotining or Bali at the sacrificial post, there will be sudden contraction of voluntary muscles, which will expel important nutrient fluids and, as in electric shock, some lactic acid will also form. What is more, since the heart will stop suddenly, there will not be sufficient bleeding which is needed for better and healthier meat.

It is evident from the above-mentioned studies that the Islamic slaughter of animals is a blessing to both the animal and the person who consumes it. It may, however, be mentioned in this connection that the Islamic method insists on several measures to make the slaughter lawful.

This is done to ensure maximum benefit to both the animal and the consumer.

The holy Prophet Muhammad's (peace be upon him) emphatic declaration in this regard should be mentioned first. The holy Prophet (pbuh) said: "Allah calls for mercy in everything, so be merciful when you kill and when you slaughter: sharpen your blade to relieve its pain."

According to a tradition transmitted by Muslim, the Apostle of Allah (pbuh) ordered a horned ram with black legs, a black belly and black round the eyes, and it was brought to him to be sacrificed. He told Bibi Ayesha Siddiqua (RA) to get the knife, and then told her to sharpen it with a stone. When she had done so he took it, then taking the ram he placed it on the ground and cut its throat.

The Islamic method indeed demands that the knife to be used for slaughtering animals must be sharp and used swiftly. The swift cut of vessels of the neck disconnects the flow of blood to the nerves in the brain responsible for pain. Thus the slaughtered animal feels no pain.

It may be mentioned in this connection that the movements and withering of the different limbs of the animal after the incision is made are not due to pain, but due to the contraction and relaxation of the muscles deficient in blood. The convulsions are due to the contraction of the muscles in response to the lack of oxygen in the brain cells.

The muscles, by these contractions, squeeze out blood from the blood vessels in the tissues to pour it into the central circulation system to be sent to the brain, but this is lost on the way (due to cutting of big vessels in the neck) and the brain cells consequently keep on sending messages to the muscles to wring out blood, until the animal dies.

Convulsions thus occur when the animal becomes unconscious. And because the slaughtered animal becomes unconscious for massive hemorrhage, it does not feel pain while bleeding.

The holy Prophet's (pbuh) kindness to the animals extended to such an extent that he also instructed the Muslims neither to sharpen the blade of the knife in front of the animals nor to slaughter an animal in front of others of its own kind. It is unfortunate that very few Muslims today abide by this noble and unparalleled instruction of the last and greatest Prophet.

While offering Qurbani on Eid-ul-Azha most of the Muslims unfortunately, ignore the above-mentioned humane instruction of the Apostle of God (phub) and recklessly slaughter camels and cows and lambs right in front of other animals. We not only fight shy of the holy Prophet's unique instruction but also very easily forget that the animals feel and suffer in the same way as the humans do.

Lastly, the Islamic method also insists that the cut should involve the windpipe (trachea), gullet (esophagus), and the two jugular veins without cutting the spinal cord. This method results in rapid gush of blood draining most of it from the animal's body. If the spinal cord is cut, the nerve fibres to the heart might be damaged leading to cardiac arrest, thus resulting in stagnation of blood in the blood vessels. The blood must be drained completely before the head is removed from the body. As most of the blood, which acts as medium of microorganisms, is removed the meat becomes purified and also remains fresh for a longer period as compared to the meat obtained through other methods of slaughtering like gullotining or decapitation, CBPS and electric stunning.

The Islamic method of slaughter is, therefore, not only the most humane and least painful but also the most hygienic of all the methods of killing animals.

(Courtesy: The New Nation, Dhaka)

2009-08-29T14:28:00.000+05:30

On Religion and Muslim Backwardness

By Syed Akbar Ali

"They have chosen the straying instead of guidance and thus, their trade never prospers, nor are they ever guided.” (Surah 2:16)

Islam is not a religion. Islam is a deen or a way of life. Islam does not breed hatred. Surely then what is breeding all this hatred in Iraq is not Islam.

The example of Pakistan and the presence of its perceived arch rival India right next door provides us a unique opportunity to compare the fate of two countries that were both one not too long ago. Pakistan was born of the partition of India in 1947. Until recently India too was a failed state. In fact according to the criteria used to measure Failed States discussed earlier it can be argued that India is still a failed state.

Literacy at 59.5% is still a luxury in the rural parts of India. Infant mortality is high at 56 deaths or 5.6% per 1000 births. But India has enjoyed buoyant economic growth exceeding 6% for the past decade.

In contrast Pakistan has a literacy rate of 48.7%, infant mortality stands at 72.4 deaths or 7.24% per 1000 births with 32% of the population living below the poverty level. It is obvious that since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, India is pulling ahead of Pakistan.

But like in Pakistan there are many parts of India where law and order is decided locally. In some parts of India like Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and other places the Central Government or even State authorities can have less clout than local landlords, warlords, brigands and others. Caste wars are too common in India until today. In Bihar whole villages are slaughtered by people of different castes. If the reader recalls these are some of the characteristics of a Failed State where the Central Government does not have full control or effective say in all its territories. The other characteristic of a Failed State exhibited by India is the fact that millions of Indians still exit the country to search for a better life elsewhere. Then corruption is still rife in India. When dealing with Government few things get done without paying someone some money. Higher education is still a privilege. Health facilities are basic. 60 years after Independence there is no clean water in all parts of India.

But India is at last just beginning to crawl out of this morass. India is touted the IT capital of the world and also the outsourcing center for the West. However 25% of the 1.2 billion population lives below the poverty level. In absolute numbers there is supposed to be a large 300 million middle class population in India. But many aspects of the so called middle class group in India are overrated. For example the entire population of programmers in India did not exceed 500,000 people in 2004. The Indians target to have 2.0 million IT professionals by 2008 (APJ Abdul Kalam). This is less than 0.2 percent of the 1.2 billion Indian population. But still this modicum of success is acting as a catalyst to spur other Indians forward. Indians are now among Forbes magazines list of world billionaires. And these are usually IT and steel billionaires.

Compared to India, there are no IT or steel billionaires from Pakistan. What differentiates India tremendously from Pakistan is that India is not shackled about reinventing everything in a religious format. Despite the presence of religious Hindu fanatics among the majority the Indians have embraced secularism. As I stated earlier, all they have to do is clean up their act, cut the corruption and improve the implementation of a workable system largely inherited from the colonial British. Once the cobwebs are cleared and the tarnish removed, the shine should come through again. At least they have a very good chance.

Pakistan does not enjoy this luxury anymore. Over successive waves of Islamisation perfectly workable systems were undermined and thrown out as being western, christian, colonial and other such malicious labeling and replaced with a confusing hodge podge of religious and tribal laws, customs and practices. And then these unworkable systems became further bogged down by the same old corruption, inefficiency and apathy of the Civil Servants, the administrators and politicians. Now even if Pakistan reduces corruption and improves the efficiency of its Civil Servants they still have to go to work in an increasingly religion infested system that is inherently flawed. You can polish the car and change to new tyres but if the engine is broken down that car is not going to get you very far.

This is the difference between India and Pakistan. The underlying institutions in India are still sound. India has a fighting chance of crawling out of its hole and it looks like the Indians are slowly doing it. But the Pakistanis have traded away their underlying workable systems for something much inferior. They have almost no chance.

And like the Osamas, the Taliban and the Ikhwan ul Muslimeen in Egypt, many Pakistanis are further hobbled by their belief that they are not successful in life because they are not commiited enough to their religion. As many of them see it, to cure their ills they must have an even larger dose of their religion. Welcome to the Club of Doom. This is like the Malay saying biarkan si luncai terjun dengan labu labunya which loosely translated means let the fat guy sink himself in the deep end. Their understanding of religion seems to focus their energies on hate, hate and more hate. They have nothing better to do with their lives.

Pakistan too has its world class scientists but they are not always appreciated. The fact is some of them have even been threatened with death. And all because of religion. Lets take the case of Dr Abdus Salam, a Pakistani scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979. Dr Abdus Salams Nobel Prize and scientific achievements are belittled and have been dismissed by the majority of Pakistanis who accuese him of being a religious deviant. Dr Abdus Salam was a member of the Qadianis - another religious sect in Pakistan which is condemned by the orthodox Sunni majority. They have even accused Dr Abdus Salam as being part of a Jewish conspiracy another favorite bogeyman in Pakistan. Here is a sample of more Pakistani bluster on the Internet against their own countryman Dr Abdus Salam: A Glimpse into Qadiani-Jewish Objectives.

In Dr. Abdul Qadeer's interview, there is one meaningful epithet. The epithet is "Like-minded". Most appropriate, because the Qadianis are great allies of the Jewish/Zionist movement. They cooperate with each other in spitting out venomous propaganda against Muslims on an international base. Zionism is a sworn enemy of Islam since its inception. History testifies that they damaged the Islamic polity by motivating separatist movements. This time they have a protagonist in Qadianism and a ready mule to ride on. The award (of the Nobel Prize) to Dr. Abdus Salam Qadiani is in pursuance of a common cause of the antagonists of Islam.

Even as great an achievement as winning the Nobel Prize does not get any appreciation. This is the terrible fate of the Islamic countries. There is this never ending hate, hate and more hate just because someone believes in a different sect.

The description of Pakistan and India should further open our eyes about the negative effects of fanatic religion. India is still pretty messed up socially, economically and politically in large part because a vast majority of Indians still believe in irrational beliefs - usually tied to religion - which has created humongous divisions and hatreds among its people. Differences created by caste, beliefs, ritualistic practices, oppressive traditions and other irrationalities has caused hardship, and even bloodshed among its people even until today. Although 1.2 billion in number the Indians do not represent one united nation.

In stark contrast, we can see the Chinese in China beginning to pull ahead of India, Italy, France, Britain, Russia and soon Japan and America by leaps and bounds because Mao Tse Tung had the great foresight to eradicate the more irrational aspects of religion and other debilitating traditional beliefs from the Chinese psyche. Before Communism, the Chinese people were also divided by caste, religion, tradition and other differences. Once these were got rid off and a uniform philosophy based on science and technology imposed upon the people the Chinese have become a more united entity. More importantly they have been able to organise themselves, pick themselves up and move forward at a rapid clip.

In my view the modern China of today is the best example of a nation making a great success of itself almost completely through the application of science and technology without being hindered too much by overbearing religious beliefs and other suffocating philosophies of life. It is doubtful if India can ever catch up with China anytime in the foreseeable future. Among the few Indians who are moving up in life in good numbers and being very productive citizens are those same IT practitioners. To make a living as a successful IT professional Indians have to leave behind their religion or caste based notions and cultural or traditional obstacles and instead rely on plain logic to write their software. This simple comparison alone should open peoples eyes (especially the Muslims) that debilitating religion not only causes hatred but it also prolongs poverty.

And what happens when the process is reversed ie when people give up a way of life based on science and logic and revert back to divisive religion ? Although it can be argued extensively if Communism is indeed the all encompassing philosophy which many think it is, Yugoslavia provides a good example of a country which was divided largely by religion and was then united through the iron grip of General Titos communism for 35 years from 1945 till 1980. After the death of Tito and the fall of communism, within 10 years Yugoslavia broke up in 1990 again and saw the resurgence of religious based hatreds. Hence we in Malaysia became familiar with the war in Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, the deaths of Muslims and Christians and so on. Titos religion free communism kept the peace for almost 35 years but post communist religion brought war and destruction to the Balkans in less than a decade.

Islam on the other hand is not a religion. Islam is a deen or a way of life. Islam does not breed hatred. Surely then what is breeding all this hatred in Iraq is not Islam.

The Quran talks about aamilus solihaat or righteous works. The South Koreans and Chinese have established a cycle of aamilus solihaat or circle of righteous works. These types of righteous works must be preceded by a willingness on the part of the people to cooperate and help each other. They must agree to abide by so called secular laws. They must have disciplined Civil Servants whose duty is to implement those laws fairly and efficiently. Unfortunately this circle of righteous work or aamilus solihaat has so far eluded the Islamic countries. Despite producing so many university graduates few of the Islamic countries can even manufacture their own underpants.

Just educating the Muslims and making every Muslim an engineer or doctor is not enough to create a successful Islamic country. Somehow a PhD does not automatically make a Muslim respect his neighbour, his environment or stop him from being holier than thou or be able to contribute some useful work in a disciplined and professional manner which can compete with the non Muslims. The continuing suffering of the Islamic countries bears witness to these failures.

Another characteristic of a Failed State is the dominance by a restrictive religion. Certainly this is what we have been talking about here. In Malaysia religion is getting more intrusive into peoples daily lives. Some of the more foolish religious authorities have lately embarked on another crusade to set up moral squads to go around snooping into peoples private lives. The ummah is being inculcated with this type of diseased mentality to become peeping toms and volunteers in these snoop squads. So far there seems to be some common sense among the political leadership which has put a stop to these snoop squads. But the disease is spreading. Many Muslims now love to observe what time their neighbours get up for the early morning sahur meal during the fasting month. They also like to check up which mosque their neighbours attend for prayers. Sometimes they will pry Didnt see you at the mosque?. We have created a nation of religious busy bodies.

Frequently we also hear of the snoop squads physically assaulting couples caught for khalwat or being in close proximity. In one case a snoop squad started beating up a policeman caught in such a situation. The policeman promptly pulled out his gun and killed one of the snoop squad. In another case that was not reported in the Malaysian media, a snoop squad beat up a boy and a girl who were caught for khalwat. The girl promptly made a police report over the assault resulting in the snoop squad being arrested by the Police.

Then we come to the aversion to hard work. This is another characteristic of a Failed State irrespective of whether Muslim or not. But the fact that the Muslims are at the bottom of the economic totem not just in Malaysia but in all Islamic countries is sufficient evidence that here is another characteristic of a Failed State that is embraced with passion by the Muslims in Malaysia. Among the Arabs it is even worse. I have already quoted figures about the contraction of the Syrian economy and the economic doldrums which are the fate of the 22 member Arab League of Nations. To work is almost disgraceful. Taking all these negative elements in total, the Muslims in Malaysia already exhibit many of the characteristics that have been observed among what is known as the Failed States.

“Some of them even twist their tongues to simulate the scripture, to make you think that it is from the scripture when it is not from the scripture, and claim that it is from God, when it is not from God. They invent lies and attribute them to God, knowingly.” (Surah 3:78)

[Syed Akbar Ali is a noted writer and activist from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He can be contacted on ali.syedakbar@gmail.com]

2009-08-29T13:20:00.002+05:30

How Qasabs are manufactured in Pakistan

By Zhi Yuan

Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, s/o Mohammad Amir Imam Qasab and Noor-e-Tai r/o Faridkot, Tehsil-Dipalpur, Jilla-Ukada, Suba-Punjab is not a blue blooded Jat Sikh. His family was highly debt ridden and in survived like most other rural impoverished Indian family. By caste a Qasai, also known as Qasab and Qureshi Amir Qasab’s father is a landless poor villager who elks out family living by vending a roadside Dahi-Puri and Pakora stall. Imam Qasab’s five children did not get quality education. Brothers Afzal (22) is a labour and Munir (11) is a student. Sisters Rukayyia Hussain (22) and Suraiya (14) did not have the privilege of attending any formal school.

Amir Qasab studied up to class four, mostly in madrasas and was forced by poverty to leave the school in 2000 and went to Lahore and stayed with brother Afzal and worked as a casual labour whenever he was hired. He went home in 2005 and had quarreled with his father over matters of employment and again ran away to Lahore only to find shelter at Ali Hajveri Darbar, a home for destitute children. He was picked up by Shafiq a casual caterer from Jhelum in Jhang Maghiana. This stint of life had exposed Amir Qasab to the criminal fringe of Lahore and Rawalpindi, which is considered one of the resource pools for recruitment by the Markaz ud Dawa or the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

His employer Shafiq was a serious businessman but sudden appearance of Muzaffar Lal Khan of Attock in Qasab’s life propelled him to the realm of crime and later jihad. They shifted to Rawalpindi and he and Muzaffar developed crazy ideas about committing robbery with helps of fringe Talibans and antisocial posing as jihadis. On the lookout for weapons for committing robberies they were attracted by a Lashkar-e-Taiba stall at Raja Bazaar, Rawalpindi. The lure of weapons and brainwashing by Lashkar operatives induced them to join the jihadi outfit. They were recruited in the name of fighting jihad in Kashmir. After detailed grilling they were enrolled as LeT members and were sent to Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal Irshad (parent body of Markaz-ud-Dawa and LeT) camp at Muridke, near Lahore, for training.

Qasab was grilled again and was selected for Daura-Sufa (preliminary training). His daily routine started at 04.15 and concluded 21.00 hrs after dinner. The 21 day training was tough, but Qasab liked the lectures on Quran and Hadith, physical exercises and hate-lectures against Hindus and India. Special talks on alleged plight of the Kashmiri and general Muslims in India were buttressed by some audio-visual displays.

Daura-Sufa was followed by Daura-Aam lasting for 21 days. The routine was same but physical training by Abu Anas was far more rigorous. In this camp Qasab was given training by Abdur Rehman in the use and application of Kalashnikov rifles, Green-O, SKS, UZI, M 16, pistol and revolvers.

Let us peruse what Qasab said to his interrogators: “After two months I was allowed to go to meet my parents…Thereafter, I went to L-e-T Camp at Shaiwai Nullah, Muzaffarabad for further advance training…Then we were taken to Chelabandi Pahadi area for advanced training called Daura-Khas.”

This course lasted for three months during which Qasab learnt using H.E grenades, rocket launchers and mortars. Their physical training instructor was Abu Mawiya. Abu also trained them in sophisticated weapons. This was flowed by lectures on Indian intelligence and security agencies.

Since it is a bulky document only relevant excerpts are included:

“Ye who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared and die not except in a state of Islam”

“O mankind! Fear your guardian lord who created you from a single person. Created, out of it, his mate, and from them twain scattered [like seeds] countless men and women; fear Allah, through whom ye demand your mutual [rights], and be heedful of the wombs [that bore you]: for Allah ever watches over you.”

“Ye who believe! Fear Allah, and make your utterance straightforward: That he may make your conduct whole and sound and forgive you your sins. He that obeys Allah and his messenger has already attained the great victory.”

“Afterward, the most truthful saying is the book of Allah and the best guidance is that of Mohammed, God bless and keep him.”

“The young came to prepare themselves for Jihad [holy war], commanded by the majestic Allah’s order in the holy Koran. [Koranic verse:] “Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies of Allah and your enemies, and others besides whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know.”

“I present this humble effort to these young Moslem men who are pure, believing, and fighting for the cause of Allah. It is my contribution toward paving the road that leads to majestic Allah and establishes a caliphate according to the prophecy.”

Principles of Military Organization:

Military Organization has three main principles without which it cannot be established.

Military Organization commander and advisory council

The soldiers (individual members)

A clearly defined strategy

Military Organization Requirements:

The Military Organization dictates a number of requirements to assist it in confrontation and endurance. These are:

Forged documents and counterfeit currency

Apartments and hiding places

Communication means

Transportation means

Information

Arms and ammunition

Transport

Missions Required of the Military Organization:

The main mission for which, the Military Organization is responsible is: The overthrow of the godless regimes and their replacement with an Islamic regime.

Other missions consist of the following:

Gathering information about the enemy, the land, the installations, and the neighbors.

Kidnapping enemy personnel, documents, secrets, and arms.

Assassinating enemy personnel as well as foreign tourists.

Freeing the brothers who are captured by the enemy.

Spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy.

Blasting and destroying the places of amusement, immorality, and sin; not a vital target.

Blasting and destroying the embassies and attacking vital economic centers.

Blasting and destroying bridges leading into and out of the cities.

Importance of the Military Organization:

Removal of those personalities that block the call’s path.

All types of military and civilian intellectuals and thinkers for the state.

Proper utilization of the individuals’ unused capabilities.

Precision in performing tasks, and using collective views on completing a job from all aspects, not just one.

Controlling the work and not fragmenting it or deviating from it.

Achieving long-term goals such as the establishment of an Islamic state and short-term goals such as operations against enemy individuals and sectors.

Establishing the conditions for possible confrontation with the regressive regimes and their persistence.

Achieving discipline in secrecy and through tasks.

NECESSARY QUALIFICATIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS FOR THE ORGANIZATION’S MEMBER

Islam

The member of the Organization must be Moslem. How can an unbeliever, someone from a revealed religion [Christian, Jew], a secular person, a Hindu, a communist, etc. protect Islam and Moslems and defend their goals and secrets when he does not believe in that religion? The Israeli Army requires that a fighter be of the Jewish religion. Likewise, the command leadership in the Afghan and Russian armies requires anyone with an officer’s position to be a member of the communist party.

Commitment to the Organization’s Ideology

This commitment frees the Organization’s members from conceptional problems.

Maturity

The requirements of military work are numerous, and a minor cannot perform them. The nature of hard and continuous work in dangerous conditions requires a great deal of psychological, mental, and intellectual fitness, which are not usually found in a minor. It is reported that Ibn Omar – May Allah be pleased with him – said, “During Ahad [battle] when I was fourteen years of age, I was submitted [as a volunteer] to the prophet -God bless and keep him. He refused me and did not throw me in the battle. During Khandak [trench] Day [battle] when I was fifteen years of age, I was also submitted to him, and he permitted me [to fight].”

Sacrifice

He [the member] has to be willing to do the work and undergo martyrdom for the purpose of achieving the goal and establishing the religion of majestic Allah on earth.

Listening and Obedience

In the military, this is known today as discipline. It is expressed by how the member obeys the orders given to him.

That is what our religion urges. The Glorious says, “O, ye who believe! Obey Allah and obey the messenger and those charged with authority among you.” In the story of Hazifa Ben Al-Yaman -may Allah have mercy on him -who was exemplary in his obedience to Allah’s messenger -Allah bless and keep him. When he [Mohammed] -Allah bless and keep him -sent him to spy on the Kureish and their allies during their siege of Madina, Hazifa said, “As he [Mohammed] called me by name to stand, he said, ‘Go get me information about those people and do not alarm them about me.’

As I departed, I saw Abou Soufian and I placed an arrow in the bow. I [then] remembered the words of the messenger -Allah bless and keep him -’do not alarm them about me.’ If I had shot I would have hit him.”

Keeping Secrets and Concealing Information

[This secrecy should be used] even with the closest people, for deceiving the enemies is not easy. Allah says, “Even though their plots were such that as to shake the hills! [Koranic verse].” Allah’s messenger -God bless and keep him -says, “Seek Allah’s help in doing your affairs in secrecy.” It was said in the proverbs, “The hearts of freemen are the tombs of secrets” and “Moslems’ secrecy is faithfulness, and talking about it is faithlessness.” [Mohammed] -God bless and keep him -used to keep work secrets from the closest people, even from his wife A’isha-may Allah’s grace be on her.

Free of Illness

The Military Organization’s member must fulfill this important requirement. Allah says, “There is no blame for those who are infirm, or ill, or who have no resources to spend.”

Patience

[The member] should have plenty of patience for [enduring] afflictions if he is overcome by the enemies. Be should not abandon this great path and sell himself and his religion to the enemies for his freedom. He should be patient in performing the work, even if it lasts a long time.

Tranquility and Unflappability

[The member] should have a calm personality that allows him to endure psychological traumas such as those involving bloodshed, murder, arrest, imprisonment, and reverse psychological traumas such as killing one or all of his Organization’s comrades. [He should be able] to carry out the work.

Forged Documents (Identity Cards, Records Books, Passports)

The following security precautions should be taken:

Keeping the passport in a safe place so it would not be seized by the security apparatus, and the brother it belongs to would have to negotiate its return (I’ll give you your passport if you give me information)

All documents of the undercover brother, such as identity cards and passport, should be falsified.

When the undercover brother is travelling with a certain identity card or passport, he should know all pertinent [information] such as the name, profession, and place of residence.

The brother who has special work status (commander, communication link,…) should have more than one identity card and passport. He should learn the contents of each, the nature of the [indicated] profession, and the dialect of the residence area listed in the document.

The photograph of the brother in these documents should be without a beard. It is preferable that the brother’s public photograph [on these documents] be also without a beard. If he already has one [document] showing a photograph with a beard, he should replace it.

When using an identity document in different names, no more than one such document should be carried at one time.

The validity of the falsified travel documents should always be confirmed.

All falsification matters should be carried out through the command and not haphazardly (procedure control)

Married brothers should not add their wives to their passports.

When a brother is carrying the forged passport of a certain country, he should not travel to that country. It is easy to detect forgery at the airport, and the dialect of the brother is different from that of the people from that country.

TRAINING

The following security precautions should be taken during the training:

The Place

The place should have the following specifications:

Distance from the populated areas with the availability of living necessities.

Availability of medical services during the training.

The place should be suitable for the type of training (physical fitness, shooting, and tactics).

No one except the trainers and trainees should know about the place.

The place should have many roads and entrances.

The place should be visited at suitable times.

Hiding any training traces immediately after the training.

Guarding the place during the training.

Appropriateness of the existing facilities for the number of training members.

Exclusion of anyone who is not connected with the training.

Taking all security measures regarding the establishment.

Distance of the place from police stations, public establishments, and the eyes of informants.

The place should not be situated in such a way that the training and trainees can be seen from another location.

The Trainees

Before proceeding to the training place, all security measures connected with an undercover individual should be taken. Meanwhile, during training at the place, personnel safety should be ensured.

Selecting the trainees carefully.

The trainees should not know one another.

The small size of groups that should be together during the training (7-10 individuals).

The trainees should not know the training place.

Establishing a training plan for each trainee.

The Trainers

All measures taken with regard to the commanders apply also to the trainers. Also, the following should be applied:

Fewness of the trainers in the training place. Only those conducting the training should be there, in order not to subject the training team to the risk of security exposure.

Not revealing the identity of the trainer to trainees.

Keeping a small ratio of trainees to trainer.

The training team members should not know one another.” (Source-LeT classroom training manual-amalgamated with al Qaeda training manual).

Besides these elaborate tech-training about preparation to be made by a Jihadi Qasab revealed that there were 32 trainees in his batch. Out of this 16 persons were selected by Zaqi-ur-Rahman for a confidential operation. There were two officers from some government office (probably ISI) with Zaqi. Three trainees ran away from the camp; the rest 13 along with one Kafa moved again to Muridke camp. Some preliminary training required by seafaring warriors was given at Muridke. Besides Qasab Mohammad Azmal@ Abu Muzahid, Ismail, Abu Umar, Abu Ali, Abu Aksha, Abu Umer, Abu Shoeb, Abdul Rahman Bada, Abdul Rahman Chhota, Afadullah and Abu Umar took part in the intensive training. After completion of the training Zaki selected 10 and his teammate was Ismail.

Besides showing locations of the targets in Mumbai in Google earth, some unknown persons had shown them videos of the interiors of the targets and explained the detailed landing route and getting around in selected parts of the city. The persons who briefed them were fully acquainted with the terrain and specialties of the targets assigned. (could be Dawood Ibrahim operatives).

What Qasab has not stated was a top-secret operation carried out by a group of SSG naval warfare experts. They trained the selected jihadis is naval-craft maneuvering, underwater sabotage and operations of the GPS system for smooth navigation.

On November 23 Zaki and Kafa escorted the contingent of 10 to the seashore near Karachi and were asked to board a launch. Later they shifted to a bigger ship Al Husseini. Each jihadi was armed with AK 47 rifle, 200 cartridges, 8 grenades and a cell phone.

While in Indian waters Al Husseini hijacked an Indian fishing vessel. After 3 days journey they reached a spot near Mumbai and Asfadulla killed the Indian seaman. Thereafter they boarded an inflatable dinghy and landed near Budhwar Park, Colaba. While other teammates proceeded to their targets Qasab and his mate proceeded to VT station to carry out the assigned task of killing as many Indians as possible.

The detailed dossier of evidences and clues shared by the Ministry of External Affairs with Pakistan, US and UK are exhaustive and confidential in nature. I do not want to breach that confidentiality. However, the simple narration of recruitment and training of Qasab and others does not complete the processes that are directly and indirectly involved in manufacturing Fidayeen groups to carry out jihad. These materials have been largely obtained from Qasab’s interrogation report. The bigger story is not available in the interrogation report and circumstantial evidences.

Pakistan government (Army and the ISI) are manufacturing jihadis in a systematic manner to wage war in Kashmir and to spread the ambience of jihad and separatism in the minds of Indian Muslims; an unfinished agenda of the partition; a new beginning of another separatist movement.

The people of Faridkot/Dipalpur are abominably poor. They traditionally supported the PPP which promised land and job to the impoverished people. According to Jugnu Mohsin of Friday Times (Pak) the poor flock received only promises; nothing substantial.

“They began to take heart from the message that came blaring down from the pulpit every Friday. There is suffering everywhere in the world. Your brethren in Kashmir, whose right to be in Pakistan as a Muslim majority area has been thwarted for decades, need to be liberated. Pray for their liberation. Your brethren in Bosnia, who are being killed in a genocide by Crusaders, need to be liberated. Pray for their liberation…”

“With poverty having driven young Ajmal from his home, he was easy prey for these jihad-manufacturers. He was already on his way as a petty robber when they got him. Life as a jihadist gave Ajmal a livelihood, money for his family (they were able to marry off his sister Ruqaiya), respect, a sense of belonging and importantly, independence from the local landowner. No longer would he or his father have to go and sit at Mian Manzoor Wattoo’s feet (landlord and village Shylock), waiting for hours in his dera, for petty favours. No longer would they be herded at election time to the Pakistan People’s Party booth or to the Muslim League’s stall to cast their vote in line with the current allegiance of their overlord. No longer would they be bullied or their votes bought.”

Ajmal Qasab was on the fringe of a criminal career. His poverty and frustration was exploited by the Markaz. They did not consider him as a prime cadre. They trained him for the special Fidayeen mission, not for Kashmir jihad. According to Jugnu, “No wonder Hafiz Saeed Amir of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba refused to call him a ‘mujahid’ when asked on a recent television interview. Ajmal’s story is as much the story of hopeless poverty as of State failure, as of recalcitrant regional hegemony and as of misplaced concreteness.”

There are other cesspools of the breeding ground of jihadis. People like Qasab have been trained in Madrasa. Madrasa education in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (Quwami and Alia madrasa) are growing by leaps and bounds. These educational institutions impart religious training and motivate the young children in fighting jihad.

The following would indicate the growth of Madrasa education in Pakistan:

Profile of madrassa education in Pakistan

Number of secondary and higher madrasas: 6,000

Senior and graduate level madrasas: 4,335

Deobandi madrasas: 2,333

Barelvi madrasas: 1,625

Ahl-i-Hadith madrasas: 224

Shia madrasas: 163

Number of all students: 604,421

Local students (Pakistani): 586,604

Foreign students: 17,817

Afghan students: 16,598

Growth of higher madrasa education in Pakistan: 1947–2001

Pre-1947– Madrasas: 137

1950–Madrasas: 210

1960– Madrasas: 472/ Number of teachers: 1,846/ Number of Students: 40,239

1971–Madrasas: 908/ Number of teachers: 3,185/ Number of Students: 45,238

1979–Madrasas: 1,745/ Number of teachers: 5,005/ Number of Students: 99,041

1984– Madrasas: 1,953

1986– Madrasas: 2,261/ Number of teachers: 12,625/ Number of Students: 316,380

2001– Madrasas: 4,345 */ Number of Students: 604,421

* This does not include 655 other madrasas that do not offer complete Dars-i-Nizami curriculum. Source Mumtaz Ahmad –Madrasa Education in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Pakistan’s school education contain perverted outlook towards India and Hindus. Children are taught to hate India from class ii and iii itself.

The education report of Pakistan (1980) started with the hangover of Two Nation theory, “The Muslim demand for a separate independent state sprang from the cultural differences and from fear of overwhelming Hindu majority in any future constitutional set-up of India. This fear was not without foundation. It was more and more evident during the last decades of the 19th century, which made Sir Syed, in the later years of his life, the champion of Muslim revivalism.”

The 2009 education perspective of Pakistan also reiterates the separatists and somewhat hate materials.

PAKISTAN STUDIES 2059 O LEVEL 2009

SECTION 1: Cultural and historical background to the Pakistan Movement

Shah Wali Ullah, Syed Ahmad, Shaheed Barailvi and the Jihad Movement, Hajji Shariat Ullah and the Faraizi Movement…

This section is designed as a background to the politico-religious debate precipitated by the decline of Mughal power and the gradual political domination by the British. Candidates will be expected to place each individual mentioned above in his religious and historical setting and have not merely a basic knowledge of each individual’s biographical details and main writings, but also an understanding of the different responses offered by individual thinkers to the decline of Muslim rule and of their relationship one to another. Candidates may be required to write comparative essays on two or more of these individuals….

The decline of the Mughal Empire and the expansion of the East India Company and British colonial rule in Northern & NW India. The reasons for the decline of the Mughal Empire. A general overview and background of the East India Company and reasons for its involvement in the subcontinent: British relations with the later Mughal rulers of Delhi; the rise of the Sikh empire under Ranjit Singh; British expansion north-westwards from Bengal up to 1810. A general overview of the course of, and reasons for, British annexation of the territories which now encompass Pakistan, including the Anglo-Sikh wars, British annexation of Lahore, the Punjab and Peshawar in particular; the British search for a ‘natural’ and ‘scientific’ NW Frontier; British policy towards Tribal Territory…

NB: This section does not require detailed teaching but is regarded as essential to provide a suitable background and context for British colonial rule of the territory now encompassed by Pakistan, as well as for the War of 1857. Candidates may be asked to use this information in questions related to the background to the events of 1857.

The War of Independence of 1857…

Immediate and main causes of 1857 uprising. The attitude of the Mughal ruler to the war. Course of the war proper, with particular reference to the role played by Muslim rulers and the population of what is now Pakistan in the uprising; reasons for its failure; assessment of the war’s effectiveness and its subsequent impact on the Muslims of the subcontinent…

British reaction during and immediately after the War, including the major constitutional, educational and administrative reforms which followed. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and the Aligarh Movement. His contribution to the education of Muslims and revitalisation of their national consciousness: an overview of his main educational works and their importance; an understanding of his social and political theory and its origins; the impact of his work on Muslims and the western world; his status as a writer, educationalist and political thinker in modern Pakistan; his relations with the British and the ullama; the foundation of Aligarh College and reasons therefore; his role in the Indian National Congress and Muslim League; the meaning and origin of his ‘Two-Nation Theory’ and the Hindi-Urdu controversy…Literary and linguistic background of Muslims in the sub-continent The importance of Urdu and the reasons for its choice as the national language of Pakistan. The advantages and disadvantages of Urdu as the national language.”

No Indian school text book prescribes such politically biased and hate-laden materials. A cursory glance at Pakistani school textbooks – especially the compulsory subjects like Pakistan studies and social studies – gives an idea of how history has been distorted and a garbled version prescribed to build this mindset and attitude.

The objective of Pakistan’s education policy has been defined thus in the preface to a Class 6 book: “Social studies have been given special importance in educational policy so that Pakistan’s basic ideology assumes the shape of a way of life, its practical enforcement is assured, the concept of social uniformity adopts a practical form and the whole personality of the individual is developed.” This statement leaves no doubt that “social uniformity”, not national unity, is a part of Pakistan’s basic ideology.

The Class 5 book has this original discovery about Hindu help to bring British rule to India: “The British had the objective to take over India and to achieve this, they made Hindus join them and Hindus were very glad to side with the British. After capturing the subcontinent, the British began on the one hand the loot of all things produced in this area, and on the other, in conjunction with Hindus, to greatly suppress the Muslims.”

The Standard VIII book says, “Their (Muslim saints) teachings dispelled many superstitions of the Hindus and reformed their bad practices. Thereby Hindu religion of the olden times came to an end.”

On Indo-Pak wars, the books give detailed descriptions and openly eulogize ‘jihad’ and ‘shahadat’ and urge students to become ‘mujahids’ and martyrs and leave no room for future friendship and cordial relations with India.

According to a Class 5 book, “In 1965, the Pakistani army conquered several areas of India, and when India was on the point of being defeated, she requested the United Nations to arrange a ceasefire. After 1965, India, with the help of Hindus living in East Pakistan, instigated the people living there against the people of West Pakistan, and finally invaded East Pakistan in December 1971. The conspiracy resulted in the separation of East Pakistan from us. All of us should receive military training and be prepared to fight the enemy.”

The book prescribed for higher secondary students makes no mention of the uprising in East Pakistan in 1971 or the surrender by more than 90,000 Pakistani soldiers. Instead, it claims, “In the 1971 India-Pakistan war, the Pakistan armed forces created new records of bravery and the Indian forces were defeated everywhere.”

The students of Class 3 are taught that “Muhammad Ali (Jinnah) felt that Hindus wanted to make Muslims their slaves and since he hated slavery, he left the Congress”. At another place it says, “The Congress was actually a party of Hindus. Muslims felt that after getting freedom, Hindus would make them their slaves.”

And this great historic discovery is taught to Std V students, “Previously, India was part of Pakistan.”

With these kinds of school teachings the tender Pakistani children grow up inside the colony of hate-bacteria towards India and Hindus. Anwar al-Awlaki a US born and highly educated engineer and Education Leadership scholar, now living in Sana, Yemen invented 44 ways to support Jihad. This important document is popular amongst Pakistani youths and Muslim jihadists all over the world.

Since the readers are not acquainted with Awlaki and his writings I produce a photograph of the ideological guru of Jihad, who is followed by innumerable youth in Pakistan and other countries and whose writings are taught in Pakistani madrasas.

His famous quotes are “Jihad is the greatest deed in Islam and the salvation of the ummah is in practicing it. In times like these, when Muslim lands are occupied by the kuffar, when the jails of tyrants are full of Muslim POWs, when the rule of the law of Allah is absent from this world and when Islam is being attacked in order to uproot it, Jihad becomes obligatory on every Muslim. Jihad must be practiced by the child even if the parents refuse, by the wife even if the husband objects and by the one indebt even if the lender disagrees…

Dear brothers and sisters the issue is urgent since today our enemy is neither a nation nor a race. It is a system of kufr with global reach. The kuffar today are conspiring against us like never before.

So could we be heading towards the great battle between the Romans and the Muslims – Al Malhamah – which the Prophet (saaws) spoke about?…

Again, the point needs to be stressed: Jihad today is obligatory on every capable Muslim. So as a Muslim who wants to please Allah it is your duty to find ways to practice it and support it. Following are 43 ways for the brothers and sisters to support Jihad fi sabeelillah.”

The ways and means suggested by him need summarization as the treatise is very long: “Having the right intension; Praying to Allah to award you with martyrdom; Jihad with your wealth; Fundraising for the Mujahideen; Financing a Mujahid; Taking care of family of a Mujahid; Sponsoring a family of a Shaheed; Sponsoring the families of the prisoners of war; Paying your Zakah to the Mujahideen; Contributing to the medical needs of the Mujahideen; Providing Moral support and encouragement for the mujahideen; Defending the mujahideen and standing up for them; Fighting the lies of the Western Media; Exposing the hypocrites; Encouraging others to fight Jihad; Protecting the mujahideen and preserving their secrets; Praying for the mujahideen; Following the news of Jihad and spreading it; Spreading the writings of the mujahideen and their scholars; The issuance of Fatwas supporting the mujahideen; Providing the scholars and Imams with information and news about the mujahideen; Physical fitness; Arms training; First aid training; Learning the Fiq of Jihad; Protecting the mujahideen and supporting them; Developing the Aqeedah of Qalaa’ and Barra’

This requires elaboration – “The issue of loyalty towards Allah, His Messenger and the believers and the declaration of our animosity towards the disbelievers and their gods has not had its fair share of attention in Islamic circles. Allah says: “There has already been for you an excellent example in Ibrahim and those with him, when they said to their people, “Indeed, we are disassociated from you and from whatever you worship other than Allah. We have denied you, and there has appeared between us and you animosity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone” (60:5);

Fulfilling our responsibilities towards the Muslim POW; WWW Jihad (through Internet); Raising our children on the love of Jihad and the mujahideen; Avoiding the life of luxury; Learning skills that would benefit the mujahideens; Joining groups that work for Jihad; Spiritual preparation for Sahadat; Guiding others to the scholars of Truth and Jihad; Preparing for Hijrah (“Muslims living amongst non-Muslims have put themselves at the mercy of the kuffar. When the Islamic state was established in Madinah the Messenger of Allah (saaws) declared it illegal to live amongst the disbelievers. Muslims should therefore prepare themselves to leave when the opportunity arises. Preparation for hijrah is not restricted to Muslims living in non-Muslim countries but applies to every Muslim because more often than not Jihad in its self demands hijrah. That is why the Messenger of Allah (saaws) said: “Hijrah does not stop as long as there is an enemy to fight”;

Giving naseehah to the mujahideen; Studying the Hadits of Fitan; Exposing Pharaoh and his magicians (apostate Muslim rulers, crusaders and Jews); Role of Nasheeds (ballad singers and composers in spreading Jihad); Boycotting the economy of the enemy; Learning Arabic-the language of the Paigambar and Gabriel; Translating Jihad literature in other languages and Teaching others about the characteristics of al Ta’ifah al Mansoorah (“The Messenger of Allah (saaws) says: A group of my ummah would continue fighting, obeying the command of Allah, defeating their enemies and they would not be harmed by those who are against them until the hour starts (the Day of Judgment)” (Related by al Hakim and he stated that the hadith is authentic)”

Awlaki literature on Jihad is vast and for lack of space all the details cannot be included. However, it is acknowledged that this new messiah of Jihad is as potent as Osama bin Laden, al Jawahiri and Hafiz Ibrahim of Lashkar-e-Taiba. These are taught in LeT camps as well as in madrasas. The fertile breeding grounds for colonies of Jihad bacteria can be located in madrasas, government and private schools and in the Tanzeem training centres.

Qasab was one of the products of these colonies of Jihad bacteria. Everywhere in Pakistan the poor and starved young children are being drafted towards jihad oriented education. In present day Pakistan teaching and preaching of Jihad is more popular and paying next only to army employees and some categories of government servants. The milling poor and poverty stricken Pakistani youth and children are drawn to such propaganda for holy Jihad. Al Qaeda, Taliban and Markaz ud Dawa and ISI created jihadi tanzeems have overtaken the civil society spaces. Between the jihadis and the army and the ISI Pakistan has been transformed into a jihad manufacturing organised state entity.

The madrasas in Muslim South Asia teach a curriculum known as Dars-i-Nizami, first introduced by Mullah Nizamuddin Sihalvi (d. 1747) who was a scholar of some repute in Islamic jurisprudence and philosophy in Lucknow. This curriculum is not the same as that associated with the name of Mullah Nasiruddin Tusi (d. 1064) and the Madrasa Nizamia, which he established in eleventh-century Baghdad.

Almost all Sunni madrasas, irrespective of whether they are of Deobandi, Barelvi, or Ahl-i-Hadith persuasion, follow the same standard Nizami course of studies adopted by the Deoband seminary in 1867. It consists of about twenty subjects broadly divided into two categories: al-ulum an-naqliya (the transmitted sciences), and al-ulum al-aqliya (the rational sciences). The subject areas include grammar, rhetoric, prosody, logic, philosophy, Arabic literature, and dialectical theology, life of the Prophet, medicine, mathematics, polemics, Islamic law, jurisprudence, Hadith, and Tafsir (exegesis of the Quran). It is important to note that out of the twenty subjects; only eight can be considered as solely religious.

The remaining subjects are otherwise secular and were included in Nizami curriculum both to equip the students for civil service jobs and as an aid to understanding religious texts. Also, facilities for teaching all of the subjects and books are not usually available in all madrasas. This is particularly true in the case of subjects such as medicine, mathematics, history, philosophy, prosody, and polemics. The result is that the students often have to move from one madrasa to another to complete their curriculum. This also results in the failure of many madrasas to institutionalize their grading and promotion procedures. However, the Deobandi curricula followed in Pakistan and Bangladesh have deviated from the mother institution in India. They have included several current affairs courses including teachings of the merit of Jihad.

Despite reform efforts in India the Barelvi and Ahl-e-Hadith managed madrasas continue to teach hate-curricula on the lines of majority of madrasas in Pakistan and Qwami madrasas in Bangladesh. While in Pakistan about 60 lakh students study in madrasas, in Bangladesh about 35 lakh students undergo fundamentalist education in madrasas. In India the approximate number of students undergoing Dars-e-Nizami and Nasiruddin Tusi streams of madrasa education is about 25 lakh. Most of these are breeding grounds of fundamentalism and radicalism.

It would therefore, be seen that Ajmal Qasab, a helpless, directionless, poor youth was attracted towards Jihad and fidayeen dasta of the LeT under pressure of multitudinous circumstances. Out of poverty he leaned towards crime and from a budding criminal he walked into the LeT trap. Once trapped and motivated a jihadi cannot escape from the trap. Destruction of the assumed enemy and self becomes an inevitable consequence.

Ajmal Qasab was made to believe that waging jihad was the holy duty as explained in dissertations of Hafiz Ibrahim, Anwar al Awlaki, al Jawahiri etc. Many Indian Muslim youths are also being trapped in the witches’ mirrors of jihad and certain pockets of Indians Muslims have been greatly affected.

(Courtesy: Sohu.com)

The Practical Work of the Ulema

2009-08-29T13:09:00.001+05:30

By Maulana Waris Mazhari

(Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand)

It has become something of a fashion for people today to constantly criticize and even condemn the traditional madrasa-educated ulema. Not just non-Muslims but many Muslims themselves regard the ulema as obscurantist, hopelessly outdated and a major cause of Muslim backwardness. While I admit the limitations and weaknesses of our traditional ulema in general, I find their total rejection or condemnation very disheartening. After all, one of the most important services that the ulema provide is to transmit to the next generation the tradition of Islamic learning. Given the fact that the ulema remain the mainstay of this tradition, at least they should be given credit for this very valuable task that they continue to perform.

One often hears modern educated Muslim intellectuals lambast the ulema for all sorts of reasons, real as well as imaginary. But, I can confidently state that compared to the former, the ulemas social role has been much greater and more meaningful. The number of modern Muslim intellectuals in India of any note can be counted on ones finger tips. They have done almost nothing for the community. Indeed, they have little, if at all, to do with ordinary Muslimsthe impoverished Muslims who live in slums, ghettos and in villages across India. On the other hand, the vast majority of Muslim institutions and movements in India, in the past and in the present, have been launched and directed by madrasa-educated ulema, who have very strong organic links with the Muslim masses. Although one can indeed critique aspects of the style and functioning of these institutions and movements, it is impossible to deny the obvious fact that the contribution of the ulema in terms of social involvement with the Muslim masses far outweighs that of their Muslim intellectual critics.

This said, I must also point out the severe limitations of some of the work ulema groups have been engaged in. Vast and rapid social, economic, cultural and political changes at both the national and global levels urgently demand new solutions and answers, but these our ulema have been unable to come up with in a satisfactory manner. The basic reason is that, being confined largely to the four walls of their madrasas and interacting mainly with fellow ulema and their own followers, they simply are not sufficiently aware of these contemporary challenges. And then, lamentably, they tend to focus excessively on relatively minor matters, such as the details of jurisprudence or fiqh, or what in Urdu are called furui fiqhi masail, and the technicalities of theology, a wholly exhausted subject about which nothing new can now be written, while leaving out major matters of contemporary import. So, for instance, you have vast numbers of maulvis who pen tracts on what they believe is the appropriate length of a beard a Muslim man should keep or what sort of cap he should wear, and who repeat tired and un-ending sectarian polemical debates about whether or not the word ameen should be uttered loudly and so on. In contrast, if you do a survey you will find very few madrasa-trained ulema who can write anything new or creative on issues of major concern todayglobal warming, inter-faith dialogue, democracy and post-modernism, Third World debt or whatever.

Almost every single madrasa in India is associated with one or the other Muslim sect or maslak, and so the function of the madrasas today has been reduced to defending and propagating a particular sectarian version of Islam. For this purpose, while madrasa students are kept ignorant of major social changes and developments in the world around them, they are carefully groomed in the art of polemical warfare in order to rebut the arguments and claims of other Muslim sects. In some madrasas they even have separate departments for munazara or polemical debates of this sort. This approach only reinforces the narrow mind set of madrasa students, who are carefully trained in parroting arguments and counter-arguments about matters that have been in existence for hundreds of years without having been solved.

Another serious limitation is what I regard as the very narrow or limited approach of our madrasa-trained ulema in general to practical work, or what is called amali kaam in Urdu. They believe that their basic task is to establish madrasas, give fiery speeches and thereby spread Islamic knowledge. Of course running madrasas is a very important, indeed indispensable, task, particularly in a country like India, where Muslims are in a minority and face certain challenges to their religious identity. At the same time, I believe that a certain sort of narrow-mindedness or lack of courage has led the ulema to restrict themselves, by and large, simply to teaching in the madrasas. Today, almost all funds generated through zakat from the community goes to funding madrasas, although the Quran says that this money should also be spent on the poor, on orphans and travelers and so on. This means that social work of this sort is also a binding Islamic duty. Yet, it is striking to note how very few social work institutions for the indigent and the needy are actually run by Muslims, especially by the ulema, who see themselves as not just religious specialists but also as community leaders. Muslims are taught to believe that their zakat must go only or largely to madrasas alone, because, so they are given to understand, this would earn them more religious merit than giving zakat to a leprosy home, for instance, or a school for the blind. Sadly, the other forms of charity are not seen as practical work that can also earn Gods pleasure and religious merit to the same extent. I think the ulema are themselves responsible for creating this wrong understanding. This is an issue that has to be properly addressed.

Across India, a number of Christian, and, in lesser number, Hindu religious groups have set up institutions for helping the poor and the needy, seeing this as a manifestation of their faith. This is how they regard themselves as expressing their faith in action. For, as the saying goes, a tree is judged by its fruit. In contrast, the number of such institutions set up by Muslims, particularly the ulema, is miniscule. Is serving the needy not part of Islam? Should this not also be considered part of the practical work or amali kaam that Muslims, including the ulema, should be engaged in? Of course it should. In fact, Islam exhorts Muslims to help all deserving of help, not just Muslims alone. Yet, it is an indication of a deep-rooted insularity and narrow-mindedness of our ulema and other Muslim leaders that the few social welfare institutions they run are almost wholly exclusive only for Muslims alone. This, too, is an issue that needs to be debated and to be addressed by Muslim scholars, activists and the ulema.

Islamic teachings about social service, and the need for our ulema to be engaged in such service, are not something simply to be taught, preached, or written or lectured about. Rather, they have to be put into action. This is why I believe that, like many Christian seminaries, madrasas must also arrange for their students to be socially engaged and involved in helping people in neednot only by lecturing or educating them about religion, but also by providing them concrete help in their daily struggles for survival.

[Maulana Waris Mazhari, a graduate of the Dar ul-Ulum, Deoband, is the editor of the monthly Tarjuman Dar ul-Ulum, the official organ of the Deoband Madrasas Graduates Association. Several of his writings are can be accessed on www.warismazhari.blogspot.com. He can be contacted on ws_mazhari@yahoo.com. Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Social Policy at the National Law School, Bangalore. He can be contacted on ysikand@yahoo.com]

Rethinking the Dalit Muslim Movement

2009-08-29T12:11:00.001+05:30

By Khalid Anis Ansari

The Pasmanda Movement (PM) refers to the contemporary caste/class movement among Indian Muslims. Though the history of caste movements among Muslims can be traced back to the commencement of the Momin Movement in the second decade of the twentieth century it is the Mandal decade (the 1990s) that saw it getting a fresh lease of life. That decade witnessed the formation of two frontline organisations in Bihar the All India United Muslim Morcha (1993) led by Dr. Ejaz Ali and the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (1998) led by Ali Anwar and various other organisations elsewhere. Pasmanda, a word of Persian origin, literally means those who have fallen behind, broken or oppressed. For our purposes here it refers to the dalit and backward caste Indian Muslims who constitute, according to most estimates, 85% of Muslim population and about 10% of India's population.

By invoking the category of caste Pasmanda Movement (PM) interrogates the notion of a monolithic Muslim identity and consequently much of mainstream Muslim politics based on it. By and large, mainstream Muslim politics reflects the elite-driven symbolic/emotive/identity politics (Babri Mosque, Uniform Civil Code, status of Urdu, the Aligarh Muslim University and so on) which thoroughly discounts the developmental concerns and aspirations of common Muslim masses. By emphasising that the Muslim identity is segmented into at least three caste/class blocks namely, ashraf (elite upper-caste), ajlaf (middle caste or shudra) and arzal (lowest castes or dalit) PM dislodges the commonplace assumption of any putative uniform community sentiment or interests of Indian Muslims. It suggests that just like any other community Muslims too are a divided house with different sections harbouring different interests. It stresses that the emotive issues raised by elite Muslims engineer a false consciousness (to use a Marxian term) and that this euphoria around Muslim identity is often generated in order to bag benefits from the state as wages for the resultant de-politicisation of common Muslim masses. When PM raises the issue of social justice and proportional representation in power structures (both community and state controlled) for the pasmanda Muslims it lends momentum to the process of democratisation of Muslim society in particular and Indian state and society in general.

Besides, the PM also takes the forces of religious communalism head on: one, by privileging caste over religious identity it crafts the ground for fomenting solidarities with corresponding caste/class blocks in other religious communities, and, two, by combating the notion of a monolithic Muslim identity it unsettles the symbiotic relationship between majority and minority fundamentalism. In short, PM holds the promise of bringing back Muslim politics from the abstract to the concrete, from the imaginary to the real, from the heavens to the earth!

But despite these brave promises PM has been unable to make the impact that was expected of it. Any mass movement must strive to maintain a balance between the social and political. The pioneers of caste movements Jotiba Phule, Periyar EV Ramaswamy or B R Ambedkar were quite alive to this notion. Apart from raising radical political demands like the one for a separate electorate for the depressed castes, Ambedkar is also remembered for social campaigns like the Mahad Satyagraha and also for raising labour and gender issues on more than one occasion. Periyar too raised the social question when inspired by a rationalist world-view he put to fire religious texts (which he considered exploitative) on the streets of Madras. Phule too defied the standard conventions of his day when he decided to open a school for the education of girls. One can scarcely fail to notice the vigorous social and cultural critique of Indian society that they offered both in theoretical terms and in action. The PM has unfortunately not taken this aspect seriously.

Right from the days of the All India Momin Conference (its pre-eminent leader being Abdul Qayyum Ansari) way back in the 1930s to its present post-Mandal avatars, the PM has singularly concentrated on affirmative action (now the politics around Article 341 of the Constitution) and electoral politics at the expense of other pressing issues. It has been completely ineffective in developing a comprehensive alternative social/cultural/economic agenda and the corresponding institutions and mass mobilisation that it necessitates. As a result of this perennial weakness it has failed to preserve an independent outlook and has incessantly been subsumed by one political formation or another. If the Momin Conference was assimilated by the Congress, both Ali Anwar and Ejaz Ali have been co-opted by Nitish Kumars Janata Dal (United) in Bihar. Moreover, it has been lackadaisical in forging alliances with corresponding caste/class movements in other communities thereby shying away from the task of forming a broad coalition of suppressed communities across religious identities or the Bahujan alternative as Phule labelled it. Consequently, it remains captivated by its limited electoral agenda and has been transformed into an easy route for realising the petty political ambitions of the nascent middle-class elite in pasmanda communities.

Need to Focus on Social

If the PM is to do justice to its potential, it is imperative that it incorporates the social into its agenda. I can think of at least three interventions in this regard as of now, and all of them flow from the main features of caste system itself. The caste system is premised on three essential features: (a) the principle of hierarchy in accordance with the elaborate rules of purity-pollution as registered and legitimized in the canonical religious texts; (b) endogamy; and (c) hereditary occupational specialization. These three features apply to the Muslim community too in varying degrees. While caste as a principle of social stratification is not acknowledged in the Holy Quran (the inclusion of a close category class is a contentious issue though) but for all practical purposes it operates as a category in the Islamic juristic/legal corpus and interpretative tradition as it has evolved in India (See: Masood Alam Falahi, Hindustan Mein Zaat Paat Aur Musalman (in Urdu) (Delhi: Al Qazi Publishers, 2007)). Moreover, there is some evidence to suggest that the process of Islamisation has only worked to reinforce rather than weaken or eliminate caste distinctions. Endogamy is still rampant in Indian Muslims as the various matrimonial columns in the newspapers/Internet testify. As far as the link of caste with hereditary vocation is concerned the market economy has eroded it to some extent but still a large number of pasmanda Muslims find themselves engaged in caste-based callings.

Due to the above mentioned trajectory of caste in Indian Muslims, the task for the PM seems clearly cut-out. One, it must offer a critique of the Islamic interpretative tradition as it has evolved in India and if possible construct an alternative Islamic hermeneutics from the perspective of the marginalised. The dalit/bahujan movement has often rejected Hindu religion in totality and located its philosophical and ideological roots in the Indian mode of dialectical-materialist discourse and in their day-to-day interaction with nature. Hence, its epistemology has had a strong material basis and also inclination to link itself to the production process of the Indian subcontinent as expressed historically in the discourses of Lokayats or Buddhism. The PM, however, has correctly critiqued and protested the casteist interpretations of Islam forwarded by the Indian ulema and has reclaimed the strong emphasis of Islam on social equality. But what is its take on economic equality on which Islam is presumably silent? Is it willing to interrogate the interpretative methodologies of imperial Islam which has been bequeathed us and is being constantly indoctrinated to pasmanda students via the obfuscating and unimaginative curriculum and pedagogical practises in Islamic seminaries (madrasas)? Is it willing to discover the rationalist and progressive trends in Islamic history (the Mutazila and Qaramita for instance)? How does it relate to the materialist tradition in Indian society as earlier mentioned? How does it relate to the liberation theology movements in contemporary Islam in other locations (in South Africa for instance)?

Two, broad campaigns and effective social interventions need to be undertaken to encourage inter-caste marriages (and also love marriages!) in Muslim society. There is a strong link between caste and patriarchy in India. By resorting to these measures caste politics will be engendered and set on the libratory track.

Three, a rigorous analysis of the Muslim working class is imperative and strategies must be designed accordingly. The entire politics of reservations concentrates on challenging the monopoly of upper-castes in the organised public sector which constitutes only a small though privileged segment of the job market. While this is essential it only affects society indirectly by democratising the state in the long run. A majority of pasmanda Muslims, however, work in adverse conditions and depressed wages in the unorganised sector (which constitutes about 90% of Indian employment) either as labourers in sectors where caste plays a minimal role (farms, brick kilns, construction industry, bidi manufacture, etc) or in caste determined vocations (as weavers, potters, oil-pressers and so on). The PM would do well to make common cause with movements that are working towards narrowing this huge gap between the organised and unorganised sector at a macro level and also think of organising caste based occupations in cooperatives or retraining those skilled workers whose traditional skills have dated and no longer generate an appropriate demand in the market.

However, I must stress here that the above mentioned suggestions are provisional in nature and not well-formed intellectual positions as yet and I merely offer them here for a debate among individuals and groups who sympathise or are connected to the PM is some way. Also, many more issues could be taken up and added to the list for instance, education, health, environment, models of development, art, popular media et al immediately come to my mind.

Reconsider Icons

Besides, I also feel a need to reconsider the icons that have been selected by the PM because the semiotics of any movement arguably defines and circumscribes its politics. Three personalities have usually been celebrated by the movement: Baba-e-Qaum Abdul Qayyum Ansari, Veer Abdul Hameed and Ustad Bismillah Khan.

Abdul Qayyum Ansari, who belonged to the julaha (weaver) community, challenged the two-nation theory and Muslim League politics squarely but failed to see through the caste/class composition of the Congress politics and was ultimately subsumed by it. Abdul Hameed, who belonged to the darzi (tailor) community, was awarded with the highest gallantry award Paramveer Chakra posthumously for his bravery and martyrdom in the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965. Ustad Bismillah Khan, who belonged to the halalkhor (sweeper) community, as we all know, was a renowned musician.

I do not intend to underestimate their achievements but it must be said that all these icons are problematic in terms of their libratory impact. While Abdul Qayyum Ansaris career ended in a political compromise and could not transcend the immediacy of electoral politics, Abdul Hameeds contribution entails a danger of succumbing to apologetic nationalism (as was evident in the emotive slogans and songs inspired by his life that were rendered in the Pasmanda Waqaar Rally held in Patna recently on 1 July 2008). Moreover, Bismillah Khans symbol is so innocuously apolitical as to make us speculate if it serves any purpose at all.

Can the PM move beyond these icons and rediscover more libratory figures in history? Can Kabir with his working class background, his unflinching critique of both Hindu and Muslim religious pretensions and obscurantism and above all his explicit positioning against the caste system be offered as a candidate here? Can other libratory symbols from Islamic and Indian history fit the bill?

All in all, the crux of the argument submitted here is that PM needs to grow beyond quota politics and rethink its abnegation of the social/cultural/economic aspects of the movement. Along with its present accent on democratisation of the state it would do well to also consider the more far-reaching issue of the democratisation of society at large. PM needs to engage in a balancing act between the political and social. This will create the much desired synergy necessary for launching the libratory promise of PM on track.

[Khalid Anis Ansari is a member of a research-activism group called The Patna Collective. He can be reached at khalidanisansari@gmail.com]

2009-08-29T12:03:00.000+05:30

Muslim Terrorists Manufactured by the Media

By Yoginder Sikand

It is not just the loony vernacular media, as many are given to believe, but even the respectable, mainstream, national English-language press in India that have sedulously cultivated the notion of Islamic terrorism, so much so that the image of Muslims in general being either terrorists or their sympathizers enjoys wide currency today. While it is true that some of the most dastardly terror attacks that India has witnessed in recent years have been the handiwork of some Muslims and this is something that the vast majority of the Indian Muslims themselves deplore it is also undeniable that Muslims have been unfairly blamed for many other attacks or alleged terror plots by the police as well as the media in which they have had no role to play at all. Many Muslims and others, too believe that these false allegations are not innocent errors, but can be said to represent a deliberate and concerted effort to defame and demonise an entire community and the religion with which it is associated.

That, precisely, is what a recently-released report, brought out by a team of secular, leftist non-Muslim activists from Karnataka argues. Titled Media on Terror, and issued by the activist group Column 9 [so named, the report says, because in a standard newspaper of eight columns, issues and perspectives that deserve a column of their own generally go missing), it is a detailed examination of the coverage and projection of terrorism in the state of Karnataka. It is based on an analysis of the reporting of terrorism in the Bangalore editions of leading Kannada and English newspapers over several months in 2008, supplemented with in-depth interviews with journalists, stringers and police officials in Honnali, Davangere, Hubli, Kalghatgi and Bangalore places where, the media had reported, terrorists all of them incidentally Muslims had been apprehended. This was a period when the media was awash with stories of Muslim terrorists allegedly plotting to take over the whole of Karnataka.

A striking finding of the report is that the media in Karnataka, both Kannada and English, dangerously seemed to pronounce judgments on those arrested, much before the due process of law was played out. In fact, the report says, there was no material basis to most of the news reports. The tone of their reporting was sharply jingoistic, and none of the standards expected of professional journalism seemed to be in evidence. Alleged terrorists in many cases innocent Muslim youths arbitrarily picked up by the police were subjected to media trials based simply on unsubstantiated police claims. The report speaks of the blurring of lines between police officials and investigative journalists, who seemed to preempt official investigation. The language and rhetoric used in the reporting reflected, the report says, an obvious and deep-rooted bias against Muslims, and a deliberate effort to create a sense of siege among Hindus.

Scores of sensational stories of Muslims being picked up for being suspected terrorists published in the Karnataka media were based on information allegedly received from what were routinely called highly placed police officials or intelligence bureau officials. Predictably, the report says, the names of these police or investigating officials were not provided, which meant that these stories many of which were patently fabricatedcould not be substantiated by these officials. In numerous instances, the reports were based on news wholly manufactured by reporters and stringers, as evidenced from the denials that emerged from the police officials themselves a day after these reports were published, which many papers chose to ignore. In almost all such cases, the newspapers did not bother to issue an apology despite irrefutable confirmation of their falsity. In most instances where the stories about alleged Muslim terrorists were based on information supplied by the police, journalists simply asked no questions at all as to the process of investigation that took place within the police stations despite it being common knowledge that torture is widely used by the police in such cases to extract information or else to force detainees to admit to crimes that they have had no hand in. Consequently, the arrested Muslims were uncritically presented in the media as hardcore Islamist terrorists, even without the courts having made their judgments. By presenting no version other than that of the police, the report remarks, the investigative aspect of journalism in Karnataka on the matter of alleged Muslim involvement in terrorism has in fact been reduced to what it calls stenographic reporting. The report adds that the few journalists who tried to balance the stories with the other views about reported incidents about Muslim terrorism or foiled terrorist plots rarely found space in the newspapers.

In this regard, it is significant to note that, as the report says, it was mainly at the lower-rungs of the police that journalists depended for their stories (often, for a price it suggests). The journalists interviewed by the team that commissioned the report confirmed that to sustain their relations with police constables they needed to keep them happy and desist from undertaking any steps to antagonize them. This, the report points out, greatly affected the credibility of their reports since they assumed the police version as valid and often failed to critique or to ask any questions about that version. The report adds:

Across the board, journalists specifically mentioned lower rung police officials, including constables and head constables within the concerned police stations, as sources of information. The journalists access to these police officials was determined entirely on the basis of their personal rapport and connections staked out within the police stations. It was fairly obvious that the journalists nurtured these relationships with the officials very carefully since the relationships were the base for a potential exclusive story. Despite the teams repeated questions seeking names of police officials who acted as sources of information, not a single reporter was willing to share these details.

Another alarming finding of the report was the arbitrary branding by both the police and the media of literature and CDs allegedly seized by the police from the Muslims who had been arrested as jihadi materials. These were presented as proof of those arrested as being behind acts of terror or even as would-be terrorists. In many cases, the police officials simply refused to share the material with journalists, at most showing them only photos of the covers of books seized from the arrested Muslims. Amazingly, the report relates, according to the journalists they interviewed, evidence of the books indeed being jihadi materials lay in the fact that most were books written in Urdu. In one location where alleged Muslim terrorists had been arrested and so-called jihadi material recovered from them, journalists interviewed by the team mentioned that the police had produced a panel of Urdu experts at a press briefing to confirm that the seized materials were indeed jihadi. Strikingly, none of the journalists had any clue about the identity of these so-called Urdu experts. A journalist in Honnali spoke about a particular CD that was seized by the police from an arrested Muslim, whom the police and the media had alleged was a terrorist. Far from being incendiary material, as was alleged, the CD, it turned out, was actually about an orphanage. Another journalist provided the team that had prepared the report a photograph taken on a mobile phone, where they could read the titles of two books since they were printed in English one of these was The Spirit of Islam and the other was the Holy Quran, books that, needless to say, are not proscribed and are readily available in the market. In this regard, the report rightly asks, How can possession of the Holy Koran be presented as proof that the people owning them are suspected terrorists? Why werent any questions or objections raised about this new tendency of the Indian police who chose to present the possession of the Holy Koran as proof of possible terrorism?. Thus, the report argues, It was very clear that the journalists had labeled books and other seized materials primarily on the basis of their interactions with the police and, to some extent, on the basis of internalized personal prejudice.

Yet another striking finding of the report is that not a single journalist whom the team met and who had reported on the arrest of alleged Muslim terrorists had received clear instructions or editorial guidelines pertaining to coverage of sensitive issues such as terrorism from their respective editorial chiefs. Many journalists spoke of the pressure to meet the evening deadlines for daily reports, and so, they admitted, there were several occasions when they did not have the time to verify the claims of police officials in cases of real or alleged terrorist attacks or plots, and merely carried police version without cross-checking. Equally distressingly, the report unveiled, reporters located in regions that usually received no print space or attention in the press found themselves catapulted to attention through the sensationalist, and often false, reports that they filed during the time of the arrests and got front page coverage. The reporters also mentioned the pressure exerted on them by the state bureau chiefs to file reports that were exclusive to the organisation. This conduced, the report says, to sensationalism and even to the fabrication of reports. As the report puts it, In the consequent one-upmanship created by the pressure to perform within the confines of a profit-driven industry, the journalists admitted to several compromises on the articles authenticity and their contents. Some journalists interviewed unanimously admitted that the reports they had filed were intentionally sensationalist in nature. According to them, what was of paramount importance was for them to prove that the arrested persons were in fact guilty, that they were in fact members of Islamist terrorist organisations, even much before the courts were given the chance to lay down their verdicts. Sadly, as the report says, these reporters saw their sensationalist reporting, not as a crime, but, rather, as a service that they were rendering to the nation they claimed that in this way they were exposing hardened criminals and potential terrorists who were capable of inflicting much harm to society.

One of the persons interviewed by the team, the reporter for the Kannada Prabha in Hubli, openly admitted that 60% of the reports that he had filed were false and inaccurate. Similarly, the Hubli reporter for the Times of India admitted to using a photograph of an unrelated dargah with his report about an alleged Muslim terrorist camp, and and falsely described the flag near the dargah as a Pakistani one. In fact, it so turned out, the correspondent himself had never been to the location. In an incident in coastal Karnataka, after two Muslim men were paraded naked and brutally assaulted in public by Hindu Yuva Sena activists for transporting cows, a Muslim protest rally was taken out in Udipi. Kannada papers falsely alleged that the demonstrators had unfurled a Pakistani flag and raised pro-Pakistan slogans and, without any evidence, accused them of being linked to Al-Qaeda and the Lashkar-e Tayyeba. Although the police denied these claims, the papers pressed on with their accusations. In another bizarre case, a Muslim man from Bangalore associated with the Muslim IT Association was wrongly accused by the Times of India of being linked to a terrorist organization. Despite these blatant falsehoods, the report notes with distress, in the overwhelming majority of cases the newspapers did not issue any apologies or acknowledge their (possibly deliberate) errors.

The team also met with senior police officials in Bangalore and Davangere. It found that they appeared to be less concerned and engaged with the prevention of biased media reporting and introspection into the role of the police. They argued that it was not the responsibility of the police to challenge inaccurate reports filed by journalists, and that this was also time-consuming. The SP of Davangere, the report says, readily acknowledged the leakage of information to the press through the lower rung officials though they were expressly forbidden from doing so. She admitted its continuance despite the issuing of a whip asking all police officials below the rank of SP to refrain from interactions with journalists, and suggested that journalists should depend on official press communiques released by SPs.

Among the many cases of false framing of Muslims as terrorists in Karnataka that the report highlights, one deserves special mention to indicate the deep-rootedness of anti-Muslim prejudices in the state machinery, particularly since the BJP emerged as such a powerful force in Karnataka. The team met with judicial officer Jinaralkar at the judicial magistrates first class court at Honnali, where two Muslim youths, Abdullah and Nasir, had been arrested on grounds of allegedly being terrorists. Jinaralkar defended his awarding of the two to police custody, although they were initially arrested and presented as bike thieves, a decision the media highlighted and lauded, crediting the judge with foresight in identifying the arrested duo as suspected terrorists. The judge explained his decision by stating that the material seized from them when they were arrested indicated that they might in fact have been terrorists, rather than bike-robbers as was initially claimed: duplicate identity cards, a dagger, a map of south India with red marks against Udupi and Goa, an American dollar, two pieces of paper, with the phrase www.com written on one and Jungle King Behind Back Me on another.

The judge told the team, When I looked at these materials in their entirety, several things were clear to me. I felt that these were definitely not just bike thieves why would bike thieves carry around duplicate identity cards and a map of south India? The fact that they had an American dollar seemed to indicate their international links, while the paper with www.com indicated that they were tech-savvy. Definitely enough grounds in my opinion to grant the police their custody to facilitate their further investigations .The report indicates that journalists in Karnataka (and this probably holds true for the rest of the country) typically see terrorism as a specifically Muslim phenomenon, and do not even consider the possibility of Hindu terrorists, although, as the report points out, in Karnataka today, particularly with the rise of the BJP, scores of incidents of terror against Muslims (as well as Dalits) by Hindu groups have been recorded. Predictably, the media does not describe these as instances of Hindu terrorism. This points to what the report terms as the dangerously marked internalisation of Hindu nationalism by media professionals in Karnataka, and the projection by the media of the Hindutva lobby as the presumed sole representative of the Hindus.

{Media on Terror can be procured from Column 9, No. 51, 29th Cross, 9th Main, Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore 560070. Price: Rs. 25.}

[Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Social Policy at the National Law School, Bangalore. He can be contacted on ysikand@yahoo.com]

2009-08-25T12:03:00.000+05:30

Stop Subsidising Pilgrimages

The Haj should be financed from private charity

By Atanu Dey

In theory, according to its Constitution, the Indian state is secular; in practice, unfortunately, it is far from it. Indian governments routinely meddle in religious affairs and do not treat all its citizens as equal in matters of religion. They involve themselves in matters such as temple administration, fund management of temple donations, and subsiding pilgrimages. The most blatant example of such gratuitous meddling is the subsidy given to Muslims for going for haj to Saudi Arabia. In 2008, Indian taxpayers paid around Rs 700 crores (US$140 million) for Muslims to travel to Saudi Arabia.

Is that a reasonable thing for the government of India to do? No: it is bad in principle, economically inefficient and morally wrong. The government of a secular state must not concern itself with religious matters. India would do well to consider the example of the United States.

The first item of the US Bill of Rights, authored principally by James Madison and adopted in 1791, begins with the injunction that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” The absence of sectarian strife in the US is at least in part attributable to that amendment which, in the words of James Madison establishes a wall of “total separation of the church from the state.”

Something like the first amendment is vitally important and must be among the core set of rules of all civilized states. It traces its origins to the ideas of John Locke who held that each individual is free and equal, and that the job of the government of a civilized society is to protect the property rights of its citizens. The US strictly maintains that separation, as it should since it claims to be a secular state. It contrasts sharply with what goes on in India.

The rationale behind the Indian government’s Haj subsidy goes against any notion of social justice, fairness, and economic reasoning. Firstly, religion is a purely private affair and the government of a purportedly secular state should not get into the business of promoting any religion. Subsidizing the Haj is discriminatory and tantamount to endorsement of Islam. No other country on earth – including Islamic states – subsidizes haj.

Second, the subsidy is unfair. Fairness is the cornerstone of justice. It is unfair — and therefore unjust — for the government to force non-Muslims to subsidize the Haj because ultimately it is the taxpayers’ money that the government hands out. For an Islamic state to tax its non-Muslim subjects is understandable since Islam dictates that non-Muslims pay jizya — “a poll-tax levied from those who did not accept Islam, but were willing to live under the protection of Islam, and were thus tacitly willing to submit to the laws enforced by the Muslim State.” The Indian government is not Islamic and therefore must not impose jizya on its citizens.

Third, the haj subsidy politicizes a purely religious matter. Political parties attempt to woo Muslim votes by increasing the subsidy. They are in effect robbing non-Muslims to pay Muslim, thus attempting to gain the endorsement of Muslims. This is totally unconscionable.

From an economic point of view, subsidies and taxes are sometimes justified. For instance, revenues required for the provision of public goods have to be raised in some way and taxes are one way of doing so. Subsidies are justified in cases where markets fail to provide the socially optimal quantities of public goods. Even then, from an economic efficiency point of view, the taxes required for balancing the subsidies should be paid by the beneficiaries of the public good in question.

A case can even be made for the tax-funded public provisioning of some non-public goods and services, as when very high transaction costs are involved. Collective provisioning through taxes of a private good is justified when it is too expensive to determine individual quantity consumed for apportioning costs among a very large number of users.

The haj subsidy paid for from general tax revenues cannot be justified on the economic grounds mentioned above. The Haj is a not a public good; there is no market failure in its supply; the apportioning of costs is simple and efficient.

Can the Haj subsidy be justified on the grounds that it is charity? It is said that charity begins at home. And that is where it should stay. As a general principle, governments must not appropriate for itself the purely personal decision of its citizens on the matter of which charitable activity to support and to what extent. It is a matter of property rights: one has a right to spend one’s income as one sees fit. Using tax money to support discretionary spending is tantamount to extortion under the threat of violence, since one can be imprisoned for refusing to pay taxes.

Finally, there is the pernicious endowment effect: once an unearned benefit is granted, it is very difficult to remove it without incurring the wrath of the beneficiaries. No government would like to run the risk of removing the subsidy and antagonizing a large voting constituency.

The problem has a straightforward solution: move the funding of the haj subsidy from the public domain to the private domain. Constitute a non-governmental body whose task is to raise funds from private citizens. It is possible to do so in this day and age of low transactions costs due to the Internet and mobile telephony. When people voluntarily contribute to fund the subsidy, it moves from the realm of coercion and becomes truly charitable.

This also takes the politics out of the whole matter and reduces the temptation that politicians have in robbing one group to gain the support of another group. By making this entirely voluntary, it removes the deep resentment many non-Muslims feel regarding the matter.

But there is a larger point which goes to the heart of what the job of a government is. Protecting the lives and property of its citizens is the primary reason for its existence. Everything else is secondary. Citizens should be on guard and prevent the government from usurping the freedoms that rightfully belong to them. When the government intrudes into such personal matters as whether or not to support the religious activities of some specific group, the state moves a little bit closer to fascism.

India needs to become a truly secular state since it is multi-religious. Its government has to be constitutionally directed to maintain a strict distinction between matters of religion and matters of state. If this requires a constitutional amendment, then it is time to introduce such a bill. The Indian government has to stop riding roughshod over the basic inalienable rights of its citizens – that of the rights to personal property and equality before the law. India needs the equivalent of the first amendment to the constitution of the United States of America.

[Courtesy: Pragati – The National Interest Review, August 2009 Issue; pragati.nationalinterest.in]

2009-08-25T11:59:00.002+05:30

The Truth behind Deobandi-Barailavi differences

By Maulana Nadeemul Wajidee

(Translated from Urdu by Syed Raihan Ahmad Nezami)

Sectarian violence is a regular occurrence in Pakistan, but unfortunately, in recent times, it is being promoted in our country too. In a recent incident, the way the Deobandi and the Barailavi scholars and clerics have unearthed their disputes and demonstrated their verbal and muscular power is not only shameful; it is strongly condemnable. Every Muslim knows the mosques are for prayers only – its use for the settlement of disputes and differences is not only unfair and depressing, but it’s a great sin towards Allah-e-Kareem. Indian Muslims are already facing numerous insurmountable problems and difficulties in their country which are boundlessly rising to the alarming level, such conflicts will further deteriorate the situation.

Does it suit our Islamic scholars and the general people to quarrel over sectarian conflicts, which have been there for over 150 years? Pakistan is a different case as it is heading towards eventual destruction. In regard to the dispute over the mosque, I see no harm if the same is accepted and used by both the fighting factions. They should have gone one step further to find an amiable solution and handed over the management to the other sect and kept offering prayers one after another. Even they can reach a solution if they are wise enough to sit at a conference table with a positive frame of mind and compromising attitude. Resorting to violence has never yielded a satisfactory result at any level, nor will it do so in future. Yet both groups are quarrelling powerfully with each other to give vent to their anger. It’s quite possible that there is a foreign hand behind the ruckus created by the ugly designs of the community with vested interest to ignite the conspiracy, which has been as old as the history of modern conflict.

The differences, in general, are not unavoidable. There may be differences over political, social or intellectual points of view. These should be discussed and resolved amicably within certain limits. A difference over the points of view being transformed into a controversy has been prohibited by the Quran-e-Kareem in the following words.

“And fall into no disputes, lest ye lose heart and your power depart” (Surah Al-Anfal: 46)

On the other hand, such a difference in opinion is acceptable and reasonable, which may be honest and based on scholarly clarification with an aim to enrich knowledge and learning. Difference of opinion has been cropping up in Islam since the beginning. It had taken place among the Sahaba-e-Karam (May Allah be pleased with them) and the people thereafter, but it was never transformed into a controversy. It is a very dirty game which maligns the religious character of the Muslims by abusing or falsely blaming the other party with ugly intentions.

The Sahaba-e-Karam (May Allah be pleased with them) too, had different points of view, but they never resorted to violence or tried to tarnish other’s image by passing out derogatory remarks, or by issuing “Fatawahs” of “Kufr”, “Fasque”, or “Fajra”. Even the intellectual Islamic reasoning became the basis of the differences in Fiqah which later on, became instrumental in forming the four different schools of Islamic thought and learning, numerous Fuqaha-e-Karam related to these schools of Fiqah differ over certain points, but they never used derogatory remarks, insulted others or delivered “Fatawahs” excluding others from Islam. The differences may occur even among the scholars of the same school of thought. Imam Muhammad (ra) and Imam Abu Yusuf (ra), the favorite followers of Hazrat Imam-e-Azam Abu Haneefa (ra), occasionally differed with him, or on certain points, confronted each other but, not in a scornful manner but rather with full respect and regard. Neither the teacher showed any disrespect nor they had any loathing for one another.

The rivalry between Allamah Sakhavi (ra) and Allamah Jalaluddin Seyuti (ra) is famous in the intellectual history. They had often commented on each other a lot in their respective writings, the differences are even found between a religious scholar and a learned person like Sufi Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani (ra) and Allamah Ibn Aljouzee who was a renowned writer, muhaddith and reformer. In the same way, Nawab Siddique Hassan Khan Qannouji (ra) and Maulana Abdul Hai Firangi Mahli (ra) too, were involved in scholarly debate without any scornful remarks and insulting expression. All the above mentioned negative elements are prevalent in the differences between Deobandi and the Barailvi scholars only who have diminished their scholarly figure and taken this conflict to the limits of “Takfeer” (Disbelief).

Let’s see! Who is responsible for this degradation to “Takfeer” (Disbelief) and “Tafseeque” (rebellion) - Deobandees or Barailvees which has taken the shape of differences among the Muslim community?

Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan, the founder of the Barailvi school of thought was politically inclined towards the British rulers. He had inherited this predilection. He heaped a lot of praise over them, and delivered “Fatawahs” for the prohibition of Jihad and opposed the Khilafat movement. He was the disciple of Maulana Fazal Rasool Badayuni and associated with Maulana Fazal Haque Khairabadi. Both the teacher and the pupil were strongly opposed to Shah Ismail Shaheed and the other Soofian-e-Karam of Delhi. Maulana Fazal Haque Khairabadi had gone to the extent of getting Shah Ismail Shaheed’s speech banned from being delivered in the Jama Masjid of Delhi. Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan was the intellectual heir of the above-mentioned two Islamic scholars.

As far as the religious background is concerned, he belonged to a Shia family. His forefather Kazim Ali Khan had played a pivotal role in connivance with Shujauddaulah, the Shia Nawab of Awadh and the British to convince and assimilate the Ruhailkhand, the Sunni state of the time. Highly impressed with the Shia culture – an influence that was quite dominant in his writings too - he had many Shia scholars among his disciple too.

I have explained all the three aspects of the background to help readers understand the root cause of conflict between Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan and the clerics of Deoband.

It has been a historical truth concerning the scholars of Deoband who worked robustly to materialize the “Fatwa-e-Jihad” of Hazrat Shah Abdul Aziz. Their miraculous acts of bravery are spread over the volumes of history of Jihad in 1857, though in the end it proved to be futile. Later on, after the Darul Uloom was established, the scholars of Deoband again took the initiative for the sake of their country and underwent physical and mental tortures and atrocities in British prisons. Ultimately, the freedom struggle met its destination and succeeded in the mission. Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan who was the well-wisher of the British, didn’t like the revolutionary deeds of the Deobandis. The Deobandis had great affinity and regard for the families of Shah Abdul Aziz and other scholars whereas Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan opposed them vehemently due to being the disciple of Maulana Fazal Rasool Badayuni. The same has been the point of discord since then and has acted as a factor in creating further rift between the two sects.

Another reason for this discord is that Hazrat Shah Abdul Aziz had vehemently criticized the Shia community in his religious speeches as well as through his erudition in books like “Tohfata Asna Ashrafiah” and “Asrarul Jaleel fi Mastaul Tafzeel” igniting the Shias to great fury. Later on, in continuation of the same, Hujjatul Islam Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, the founder of Darul Uloom Deoband, penned “ Bidayatul Shooja”, Fayooz Qasmiya”, “Intibahul Mumeneen” and “Ajooba Arbaeen”, his fellow Hazrat Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi authored the scholarly but controversial “Hidayatul Shia” which highly infuriated Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan. He delivered a “Fatwah” against Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, “Qasmiya lanatahumullah is Maloon and Murtid (rebellion)”(Fatwah Rizwiya – 59/5).

Later on, he gave another “Fatwah” on reading the books of Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi, “He should be thrown into Hell and the Hell Fire will burn him”. (Khalisul Aetaqad, Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan Barailavi, Page-62)

These two factors added fuel to the fire which enraged Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan, the founder of the Barailavi school of thought to take the path of enmity, condemnation and denouncement. This kept increasing every passing day, till it took the form of promoting divisions within the Muslim community and getting Muslims declared Kafir (Tafreeq Bainul Muslemeen and Takfeerul Muslemeen) to the extent that he didn’t even slightly waver from distorting or deforming anyone’s writing. For instance, Tahzeerul Naas is a small magazine by Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi. It contains intellectual arguments on the issue of the final prophethood (Khatm-e-Nabooat) of the prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him). Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan deleted some portions of the content from the pages 14, 28 and 30 to recompile a distorted passage. After this condemnable activity, he went to Makkah and Madina to get a “Fatwah” issued by the scholars of Hijaz. The new passage recompiled by him is given below.

“Even if it is assumed, there might be any other prophet in the reign of the prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him), His status as the last prophet of Islam is intact, but even if it is assumed – that in the later age of His prophethood, any other prophet appears, there will be no effect on the status of the prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him). In the view of common Muslims, the final prophethood of the prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) means that he is the last prophet among all those who have been sent to this world, but in the eyes of scholars it is clear that no particular significance attaches to a prophet coming before or after. (Husamul Harmain, Page 101).

The last sentence of this passage, “In the view of common Muslims” is at page 30 in the original book, the first sentence is at page 14 and the middle sentence at the page 28. The way Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan has joined the three sentences into a single passage gives the impression that Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi is rejects the finality of prophethood. In the Arabic translation, he deleted the word “Bilzat” and included “Aslan” at its place which totally changed the meaning of the content. By deletion and addition in the writings of Deoband, he got “Fatwa-e-Kufr” from the scholars of Najad-o-Majaz against the Deobandi ulema and returned to India in high spirits. God knows if someone asked him or not – what benefits did he obtain from such “Fatawahs”? What service did he do to Islam by dividing the Muslims in two groups?

On the other hand, the scholars of Deoband continued to seek to express their feelings. Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi asserted, “The culmination of the prophethood with Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) is part of our belief and faith. But nothing can be done to stave off false criticism. (Jawabat Mahzoorat, page 29)

“There is no possibility of any other prophet after Rasoolullah (Peace be upon Him) is my faith and “Iman”, I consider him a disbeliever who has a slight suspicion over it (Maktoobat Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, Page 103). In a similar vein, Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan Sb Barailavi blamed Qolubul Arshad Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi – that according to him, “Allah-e-Kareem is a liar (Nauz Billah) This assertion is famous like “Imkan-e-Kizb” based on a fake and baseless “Fatawah” delivered by Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi, yet it is not proved till today, when and where was the concerned “Fatwah” delivered? Maulana Ahmed Raza Khan has referred to this baseless “Fatwah” in Husamul Harmain on page 102 and asserted that he himself had seen the “Fatawah”, later on he mentioned on page 29 that a Photostat of the “Fatwah” is preserved in Madina. Unfortunately, no Barailavi cleric or scholar has so far presented even the photocopy of the “Fatawah”, not to talk of the original document.

Hazrat Maulana Khaleel Ahmed Sahab and Hakeemul Ummat Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Ashraf Ali Thanavi too, could not be spared from this hateful campaign of “Takfeer”. The former was blamed that he considered Satan more learned than the prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) and the latter, as it is alleged, faced the accusation that animals as learned as prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him). Maulana Khaleel Ahmed responded to the accusation, “I and even my teachers consider the person “Kafir”, “Murtid” and “Mal’oon” who assumes that any person or any creature is greater in knowledge than the prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon Him), not to talk of the Satan. It means that Khan Sahab Barailavi’s allegation is a pure lie and false assumption. I never assumed as if any angel or “Wali”, not to talk of a Satan, may be greater in learning than Him (Peace be upon Him), although he may be greater in education. Of all the wrong charges that Khan Sahab has leveled on me I will seek justification from him on the Day of Judgment. I am absolutely not responsible for it”.(Fatawah Darul Uloom, Deoband – 38/2)

Hakeemul Ummat Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanavi got a magazine published in response to the “Fatwah-e-Takfeer” and made it the foreword of his book “Hifzul Eman”, He wrote, “I have never penned such an ugly article in my book, and cannot think of writing such rubbish. I have never imagined such an ugly topic and seriously consider that the person should be excluded from Islam who possesses such Faith, or even without having Faith, says even by any means. My Faith as well as my forefathers’ or the teachers’ faith has been on his being the most exalted and excellent person among all kinds of creatures concerning all the branches of knowledge theoretically or practically. In short, after Allah-e-Kareem, the Prophet (Peace be upon Him) is the only eminent and erudite person on earth. (Fatawah Darul Uloom, Deoband – 48-49/2)

Even after all the clarification given by the Deobandi clerics and scholars, the Barailavi community still insists that the Deobandi clerics have asserted the “Kufriya versions” so they are “Kafirs”, although they are fully aware of the fact, the people who refute the blames of disbelieving should not be called “Kafir” or “Murtid”. Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan and his followers have not targeted the above-mentioned few scholars, rather they have asserted the following “Fatawahs” too. “Wahabi”, “Deobandi”, “Qadiyani”, “Chakralavi” and “Nichri” are unsanctioned and dead, though they may recite the name of Allah-e-Kareem a thousand times or they may be very pious or religious people, but they will remain Murtadeen”. (Ahkam-e-Shareef, 122). It’s binding on “Wahabiyah” to consider their each and every person “Kafir”; it means that “Dehlavi”, “Gangohi”, “Nanautavi” and “Thanavi” are certainly “Kafir” or “Murtid”. (Al-Istamdad Ala Ajyalul Irtedad, Page-51)

Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan Sb was obsessed with denunciation and delivering “Fatwah-e-Kufr”, so that no famous scholarly, religious or political personality had been spared from being declared “Kafir” by him. Sir Syed, Hali, Allama Iqbal and Md Ali Jinnah etc. too, were declared “Kafir” because they were directly or indirectly associated with the clerics of Deoband with reference to “Tajanib ahlul Sunnah” and “Mehar Munir” etc.

In contrast, the Deobandi clerics take consider matters in a serious manner and never deliver a verdict of “Kufr” based on any minor passage ignoring the meaning and the sense of the speaker in which context it was spoken and the entire content as a whole; rather they consider them guilty who deal with any such sensitive matter as abruptly like this. For instance, a particular “Fatwah” of Darul Uloom concerning Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan and his followers is being given below. “To consider Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan and his pupils “Kafir” is not reasonable as there may be any defect in their statements. Earlier too, the Fuqaha-e-Islam have observed extreme caution in “Takfeer-e-Muslemeen” and are of the same opinion, if there are 99 elements of “Kufr” present in a person’s writing and even one element of weak Islam, the Muftees should deliver the “Fatawahs “ on the ground of the weak element – means he should be considered a Muslim. (Fatawah Darul Uloom, Deoband – 54-55/2)

Now, good sense has started prevailing among the Barailavi clerics and scholars too. They have realized that the Mission-Kufriat was unimportant and rather, it has harmed them as well. The statement of Barailavi scholar further clarifies the point in a better way.

“The sensible intellectuals of the present time hesitate to tread over this sphere. It is generally believed now that Imam Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan used to declare the Muslims “Kafir” and he had established a Kufriat-producing factory in Bareilly. (Al-Meezan monthly, Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan No.29)

The Barilavi scholars too, have admitted the truth that the Barailawiat remained confined to the circle of the illiterate people only due to such “Fatawahs” and explanations. (Al-Meezan monthly, Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan No.28-29, Fazil Barailvi and Tark-e-Mawalat, Page-5)

Tragically till today, the good Barailavi scholars are still busy in realizing their “Mission-Takfeer”. The situation will certainly worsen if they openly declare the Deobandis “Kafir” and “Murtid” through their speech and writings. The need is to mind their own business forgetting the old ‘Fatawahs” and assertions, only then an atmosphere of peace and harmony can be created but throughout the country. Presently the protection and the defence of Deen-e-Islam is of utmost significance which is being hampered by the differences and the rift created in the Ummat-e-Islamia and the Muslim community.

Have the Barailavi clerics ever pondered over the issue seriously from this viewpoint too?

(Courtesy: NewAgeIslam.org)

Jinnah: Secular India’s best villain

2009-08-21T18:47:00.002+05:30

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

A wind of change is flowing in the Indian subcontinent with growing people to people contact between India and Pakistan. But this bonhomie is shattered when the same old musings of partition, secularism and Jinnah surrounds us. No-doubt, Pakistani elite suffered from a pang of identity. In the popular Indian secular debates, Jinnah became the official villain, a Muslim fundamentalist who needs to be decried while comfortably ignoring the communal mindset of the Congress Party and the upper caste fundamentalist leadership within the Congress.

The peace with Pakistan will remain fragile as long as we are unable to reconcile with the fact of partition. The paradox of the Indian subcontinent is much bigger than the issue of communalization of a leader and certainly a leader of stature of Jinnah cannot be made a scapegoat for those who want to target the politics of the Sangh Parivar or Hindutva in India. When history and historians become embedded to the Gandhian philosophy, such assassination of character is bound to happen, as has been in the case of Jinnah. In fact, Gandhi has become a tool to rubbish others who disagree with certain brand of politics in India be it secular or Hindutva. Otherwise, the fact of the matter is that Gandhians enjoyed Arun Shourie's writing on Ambedkar because the author condemns Ambedkar for his disagreement with Gandhi and for a large number of Ambedkar's statues set up in different parts of the country.

There are many more things before we embark upon the entire historians perspective. Are we ready to admit that there were grave mistakes on the part of Gandhi and the Congress leadership? If yes, then we will have to make a comparative criticism of Gandhi and the entire Indian freedom movement. Are we democratic enough to do so and respect the dissent?

Many contemporaries of Gandhi disagreed with him on various aspects of his political thoughts and religious philosophy. These were people of great integrity and perhaps no less then Gandhi and each one of them have their own vast following. One of them has perhaps more followers then Gandhi. Dr Ambedkar never agreed with Gandhi and termed him as most dangerous for the scheduled castes. Jinnah never really appreciated the Mahatma culture around Gandhi. Periyar exposed Gandhi's caste mind on Vaikume temple entry movement while M.N. Roy out rightly rejected his vision as backward looking fascist philosophy. Gandhi was more worried about culture and Roy mentioned that the fascism in India would be cultural fascism and may not be that violent as happened in Europe during Adolf Hitlers regime. Indeed, if history of India has to be written, one need to take divergent view points of these people who disagreed with Gandhi and his Congress Party.

It is therefore not ironical to say that Gandhi brought religion into politics and supported the Khilafat movement while Jinnah openly opposed it. In today world when we talk of the dangers of political Islam or political Hindutva, Gandhi's effort to promote fundamentalist elements would have drawn huge criticism. Jinnah understood the dangers of religious fundamentalism and never ever tried to follow them. In fact, support to the Khilafat movement created a typical situation where Muslims started thinking in terms of their exclusive international identity, an issue which the many in the country including veteran congress leader like Annie Basant feared would isolate them from other communities. Scholars like Ambedkar were opposed to this kind of internationalism which goes beyond the national interest and felt that between nation and religion the community should first consider nation.

Though, the Indian Muslims have proved the above fear wrong. And such testing time came and they were under the constant pressure of the right wing Hindutva forces to prove their loyalty towards India. Unfortunately, their leadership let them down as their socio economic issues were relegated to backstage while religious agenda dominated their world. As a reaction to this, the upper caste Hindu leadership has also identified Pan Hinduism the best way to unite Hindus and use them as a votebank.

Condemning Jinnah has therefore become a fashion in India. When the Babri Mosque was demolished, a friend wrote an article Advaniwad is equally dangerous as Jinnahwad. When Savarkar's issue came up on the front, the seculars started putting Jinnah and Savarkar together in their common venture of defending secular India. Were we really a secular nation or we simply using pluralism, multiculturalism and secularism interchangeably?

History has unique trends. They only need to be properly played and analyzed without any hidden agenda.. One of the most important facts among them is that in 1935, M.A. Jonah out rightly rejected the suggestion of Choudhury Rahmat Ali, to lead Muslim League, and demand Pakistan, terming that it was impossible and unrealistic to have such a demand as Hindus and Muslims have been living harmoniously for centuries. In fact Jinnah reportedly opposed until the last moment to the introduction of the word Pakistan in the Lahore resolution of the Muslim League. Our political analysts have done irreparable damage to Indian polity by not analyzing reasons of Muslim disenchantment from Congress leadership. Did we ever look at the issue of Congress Party's refusal to share a coalition with the League in the United Provinces elections which they fought jointly, which gave the league the much wanted ammunition to cast suspicion on the motive of Hindu Congress.

The League won only 109 of the 482 seats reserved for Muslims, and Congress appeared to be justified in viewing it as little more than an irritant. This was a mistake, for during the late 1930s Jinnah was able to turn it into a serious political force. He was extremely effective in attracting, recruiting and motivating wealthy, bright, well-educated younger Muslims such as Liaquat Ali Khan from the United Provinces, the Raja of Mahmudabad, whose family were the largest landlords in Lucknow, and Mirza Abul Hassan Ispahani of the financial family of Calcutta. None of these men was a religious communalist, yet all were in favour of using religious nationalism as a means of safeguarding the Muslim position.

Jinnah is not our flavor of tea as he demanded Pakistan and spoiled the great secular party. Yet one cannot deny the fact that Jinnah never considered Hindu and Muslim issue as a religious one. He always opined that it is a political issue. Secondly, much before Jinnah could begin to think about a separate nation Veer Savarkar of the Hindu Mahasabha had certified that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations. In his book Pakistan or Partition of India, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, extensively quotes Savarkar as supporting this view. Muslims can have separate flag, a personal law exclusively relating to their problems and have every right to preserve their culture, he said thus opposing the demand for partition of the country. They could stay in India as equal partner of this country but not at the cost of division of the country. Dr. Ambedkar rejected Savarkars theory as impractical and doublespeak. All those who consider this country as their fatherland are Bharatvasi. Sanskrit is Dev-Bhasha and Sanskritised Hindi should be the national language of the country opined Savarkar.

The question is who were responsible for creation of Pakistan or Partition of India? Was Jinnah solely responsible for it or Congress wanted it? Noted jurist late H.M.Seervai tried to bring out the fact in his much applauded work Partition of India-Legend and Reality:

In considering whether Jinnah and the League were responsible for the partition of India by raising the cry of Pakistan, it is necessary to ask, and answer, to questions; First, were the fears of the Muslim community that it would be permanently dominated by a `Hindu Raj genuine? If so, was the community entitled to effective and not mere paper safeguards against such permanent domination? That the fears of the Muslim community were genuine is beyond dispute. The Desai-Liaquat Ali Pact, the Sapru Committee Report, Azads letter to Gandhi, as well as his interview with the Cabinet Mission, and the interview of the Nationalist Muslims with members of the Mission, all recognized that those fears were genuine. The Cabinet Mission was also satisfied that those fears were acute and genuine, and underlay the Muslim Leagues demand for Pakistan. But the Sapru Committee, Azad, the Nationalist Muslims and the Cabinet Mission whilst recognizing those fears, nevertheless rejected Pakistan as a solution for removing them. All the witnesses before the Cabinet Mission, except the Muslim League, had supported a Constitution for a United India. Equally, most of them had recognized that the fears of the Muslims of being dominated by a `Hindu Raj required effective safeguards, and `parity, or near `parity, with a minimal federation appeared to furnish effective safeguards. The Cabinet Mission Plan, as intended by the Mission, if worked in the spirit of goodwill, supplied effective safeguards, and Jinnah recognized this when he accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan. However, the Hindu Mahasabha, and eminent Hindu leaders of the Congress, like Gandhi, Nehru and Patel (disregarding the views of Sapru, Azad and the Nationalist Muslims) considered parity as `undemocratic because they took democracy to mean `one man, one vote. They forgot that if, as they firmly held, the unity of India was the paramount object to be achieved in framing a new Constitution, theory would have to yield to the need to provide effective safeguards for a community of 9 crores.

The post Mandal India has learnt to live in the age of federalism though the governors still call shot.. Gone are the days when a central government had brute majority to crush the rising demands of the regional people. Even regional parties are having a strong say in the federal government and getting proportionate representation. Unfortunately, this issue of parity was not recognized when the Congress Party was speaking to Jinnah and Muslim League..

Interestingly, Congresss upper caste brahmanical leadership came under attack from Maulana Azad also who narratively described in his book India wins Freedom,( 1988 edition) how a senior person like Dr Sayed Mahmud, General Secretary of All India Congress Committee, was sidelined.. When the Congress secured an absolute majority, it was taken for granted that Dr. Syed Mahmud would be elected the leader and become the first Chief Minister of Bihar under Provincial Autonomy. Instead, Shri Krishna Sinha and Anugraha Narayan Sinha who were members of the Central Assembly were called back to Bihar and groomed for the Chief Ministership. Before referring to the grim conclusion which Azad draws from the Nariman and the Syed Mahmud episodes, there is one new passage in the 1988 edition which, in my view, gets linked to Azads conclusion. Azad expressed the view that Dr. Rajendra Prasad had no political life before Gandhi appeared on scene, and Dr. Rajendra Prasad was entirely the creation of Gandhiji Azad added: I have heard from a reliable source that Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha arranged a dinner where many of the more prominent Hindus were invited to meet Gandhiji. They told Gandhiji that the Hindus of Bihar would join the Non-cooperation movement provided Gandhiji elected a Hindu as the leader. Gandhiji said that he could not grant leadership to anybody at his own sweet will, but he promised that if a Hindu of caliber and character came forward, he would offer him necessary support. Babu Rajendra Prasads name was then suggested to Gandhiji and in the course of a few years, he became an all India figure with Gandhijis help and support. (H.M.Seervai in his book : Partition of India : Legend and Reality)

The entire Congress leadership had thus become Hinduised where the Muslims were looked down upon and their leadership with in the congress which was pitiably termed as nationalist Muslim turned guilty for inflicting wounds of partition on India. This has been reflected in the debates on reservation in Constituent Assembly. While the Muslim members vehemently protested against granting any reservation to Dalits and Muslims, Sardar Patel, the then Home Minister openly accused them of helping partitioning India. Patel termed reservation for SC/ST as casteist approach harmful for the country.

The Muslim League dominated by the Zamindars of United Province had little time to think that there are many disenchanted group especially those of SC/ST and other classes, who ignorantly had Hinduised themselves, were sore up with the Brahmin led upper caste leadership of the Congress Party. Even Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, was one such person requested Jinnah to lead such a front. Unfortunately that did not happen and Jinnah went to Pakistan which he wanted as a secular, progressive nation. Speaking in the constituent Assembly of Pakistan, on August 11th,1947, Jinnah expressed the following:

You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of PakistanYou may belong to any religion or caste or creed---that has nothing to do with the business of the StateWe are starting in the days when there is no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.

If you change your past and work together in a spirit that every one of you, no matter to what community he belonged, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what his color, caste, or creed, is first, second, and last a citizen of this state with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make....We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the principles of justice and fairplay without any, as is put in the political language, prejudice or ill-will , in other words, partially or favoritism. My guiding principle will be justice and complete impartially, and I am sure that with your support and CO-operation, I can look forward to Pakistan becoming one of the greatest Nations of the World. (Times of India, 12th August 1997)

The leaders of India and Pakistan have not learnt anything from the catastrophe of partition. In democratic India, every institution was kept safe for Brahmins and upper caste Hindus, in the Punjabi dominated Pakistan, people of Bengal were discriminated. The Mohajirs, the migrants from Bihar and UP, are still not treated as Pakistani citizen. In 1971 the issue of Bangla identity and Pride rocked Pakistan forcing its partition. Today, the same Bangladesh is facing a cultural onslaught by those who opposed its freedom. This has interesting co-incidence that in India the votaries of Hindutva become the protector of Indian identity though they never fought for its independence very similar to that what Jamat-E-Islami has been doing in Bangladesh.

The Pakistan of today is not what Jinnah dreamt of and India does not follow to Gandhi for whatever Gandhi claimed in his life, the Gandhian leaders have killed. Every act of vandalism in India has been described as an aberration as if such things did not happen. Actually, we suffer from a myopic vision of our past and make things look very simple. The post independence rigid ideologies have easily divided people into this or that camp without understanding the real meaning of federalism and democracy. It is simple that we have to quote Gandhi and Nehru to prove ourselves secular. Today, it is more in terms of condemning Hindustan. For Muslim, they have to attack Jinnah to prove more secular and nationalist. I think it is the defeat of Gandhi and democracy that we continue to chant. We have still not developed democratic values of pluralism and respecting the dissent. The fifty years of history of both India and Pakistan can prove both demand for partition and against it wrong, hence it is no point of debate. Brothers differ on issues and live separately and yet remain close as ever and some time they live together and yet far away from each other. It is no point playing the blame game that Muslims are better in India. This kind of silly argument will take us no where like those who consider that India could not provide security to Muslim. Bhivandi, Maliayana, Moradbad, Bhagalpur, Kanpur, Malegaon, Mumbai, Ahemedabad, Babri Masjid were not isolated incident. The continuous isolation of Muslims in Indias government and bureaucratic circle is reflection of a greater reality of how secular we are. Similarly, condition of Mohajirs, Ahmedis, women, minorities and division of East Bengal prove amply in which direction Pakistan is going. It is worth understanding that our symbolic secularism and their politics of Islamic identity have not been able to resolve the crisis our nations. Indian secularism could not contain the majoritarian fundamentalist forces and nor could it stop misuse of laws which make minority a suspect while Pakistani Islamic identities could not prove anything to Mohajirs and Bengalis.

We live in different times and perhaps now time has come when we will have to stop make villain of certain people just to target our political opponents. I have on various occasions opined that as democratic and open societies India and Pakistan have to realize that they are two different entities. It is equally important for Pakistanis to understand that Gandhi fasted unto death for the cause of Pakistan. That Pakistan must get its due for which he was killed by a fanatic Hindu. Similarly, Indians must understand that Jinnah was a thorough secular whose was termed as Ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity by none other then Sarojini Naidu. It was Jinnah who tried to get Bhagat Singh lawyers in Lahore when his case was to be heard. It was Jinnah who termed Bhagat Singh as secular nationalist while Gandhi failed to do so.

Our political leaders must have the courage to differ and admit it. All those who differed with Gandhi do not therefore become villain of independent India. Therefore people like Ambedkar, Jinnah, Periyar, M.N.Roy stood taller despite their differences with Gandhi. Just because they differ with Gandhi cannot belittle their contribution to the society and intellect. We must get rid of the kind of jingoism where Gandhi and Jinnah become two symbols of Hindu secularism and Pakistani Islam. It will take us nowhere and it cannot bring peace in the subcontinent.

[Vidya Bhushan Rawat is working as a fulltime human rights defender. He has made several documentaries and also written books on the issues of human rights, Dalits, women and minorities. He can be contacted at vbrawat@gmail.com]

Assessing Jinnah

2009-08-20T17:53:00.003+05:30

By A.G. Noorani

Mohammed Ali Jinnah was an Indian nationalist who did not believe that nationalism meant turning one's back on the rights of one's community. The Congress stipulated that, virtually. That this was Jinnah's favourite photograph tells us a lot about his self-image.

Ignorant biographers have made much of the fact that at a reception in his honour on January 12, 1915, Gandhi asked Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who was presiding, to speak in Gujarati; implying that he was embarrassed because he knew only English. But Gujarati and Cutchi were the only two languages Jinnah spoke perfectly; "beautifully", M.C. Chagla recalled. His devoted follower M.A.H. Ispahani put it delicately: "Even in this language [English] the meticulous don would have found some flaws" (The Jinnah I Knew ; page 107).

But, with the indifference to matters of substance that marks most writings on Jinnah, they overlook a more significant aspect to the relationship. Dr. Ajeet Jawed draws pointed attention to its implications. When Gandhi returned to India from South Africa, Jinnah was a national leader towering above Motilal Nehru, Tej Bahadur Sapru and M.R. Jayakar. He was a colleague of Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Bal Gangadhar Tilak. He performed a central role in the Congress, the Muslim League and the Home Rule League (HRL). Gandhi's demand was certainly presumptuous, if not insulting. But it revealed his pronounced tendency to establish his ascendancy. It worked with all others - save Jinnah. In his correspondence, he even advised Jinnah gratuitously about his wife. In October 1916, addressing a conference over which Jinnah presided, Gandhi referred to him as "a learned Muslim gentleman ... . an eminent lawyer and not only a member of the Legislature but also president of the biggest Islamic association in India" (Secular and Nationalist Jinnah; page 193).

Gandhi was "cutting Jinnah to size", as a sectarian leader. Jinnah was neither put out nor deflected from the course he followed. Chimanlal Setalvad and he remained two persons who never subordinated their will and judgment to him. On his part, till the end Jinnah treated Gandhi as a peer. He was not forgiven for this. Jinnah could not be "domesticated" like the Nehrus and Sardar Patel, nor co-opted.

Equally wrong is the impression that Jinnah was embittered because Gandhi, in effect, ousted him from two bodies - from the Home Rule League of which Jinnah was president, and from the Congress. About what happened in the former, we have Jayakar's detailed account in his memoirs, The Story of My Life (Vol. I, pages 316-318 and 404-5). In December 1919, Jinnah invited Gandhi to join the HRL as its president. So much for his ambition and ego. He overruled Jayakar's opposition, which was based on Gokhale's advice: "Be careful that India does not trust him on occasions where delicate negotiations have to be carried on with care and caution... . He has done wonderful work in South Africa... . but I fear that when the history of the negotiations... is written with impartial accuracy, it will be found that his actual achievements were not as meritorious as is popularly imagined."

Gandhi promised Jayakar that he would not change the HRL's character. He became its president in March 1920. Gandhi and Jinnah had cooperated at the Amritsar session of the Congress in November 1919. At the Calcutta Congress in September 1920, Gandhi unfolded his programme of non-cooperation. Jinnah said that while he was "fully convinced of non-cooperation" he found Gandhi's programme unsound. Gandhi was able to win over the doubters. He failed with Jinnah. Maulana Shaukat Ali tried to assault Jinnah, but was stopped by his friends. Gandhi took the battle to the HRL and presiding over its session on October 3, 1920, had its objectives changed in breach of his promises. It was a coup. Nineteen veterans resigned from the HRL, including Jinnah, Jayakar and K.M. Munshi (vide Jayakar, page 405 for the text of the letter). Gandhi flouted his promises to Jayakar, as he recorded.

On October 30, 1920, Jinnah wrote a letter to Gandhi which is of historic importance: "I thank you for your kind suggestion offering me `to take my share in the new life that has opened up before the country'. If by `new life' you mean your methods and your programme, I am afraid I cannot accept them; for I am fully convinced that it must lead to disaster. But the actual new life that has opened up before the country is that we are faced with a Government that pays no heed to the grievances, feelings and sentiments of the people; that our own countrymen are divided; the Moderate Party is still going wrong; that your methods have already caused split and division in almost every institution that you have approached hitherto, and in the public life of the country not only amongst Hindus and Muslims but between Hindus and Hindus and Muslims and Muslims and even between fathers and sons; people generally are desperate all over the country and your extreme programme has for the moment struck the imagination mostly of the inexperienced youth and the ignorant and the illiterate. All this means complete disorganisation and chaos. What the consequence of this may be, I shudder to contemplate; but I, for one, am convinced that the present policy of the Government is the primary cause of it all and unless that cause is removed, the effects must continue. I have no voice or power to remove the cause; but at the same time I do not wish my countrymen to be dragged to the brink of a precipice in order to be shattered. The only way for the Nationalists is to unite and work for a programme which is universally acceptable for the early attainment of complete responsible government. Such a programme cannot be dictated by any single individual, but must have the approval and support of all the prominent Nationalist leaders in the country; and to achieve this end I am sure my colleagues and myself shall continue to work."

This was not an intimation of parting of ways but a plea for unity against the British, differences on the methods notwithstanding. At the Nagpur session in December 1920, Gandhi's capture of the Congress was complete. Only, it was a victory procured by a Faustian deal with the Ali brothers on Khilafat. Jinnah was in a minority of one. Decades later, Munshi lauded him for his courage. Ian Bryant Wells' comment is fair: "By taking up the Khilafat issue, he gained substantial support for his own political programme." Without the Ali brothers' support, he could not have pushed through his programme.

Before long, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) ordained that Congressmen should give 2,000 yards of hand-spun yarn every month. Jinnah was still not embittered. This is what he said on February 19, 1921: "Undoubtedly Mr. Gandhi was a great man and he had more regard for him than anyone else. But he did not believe in his programme and he could not support it" (The Collected Works of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah; edited by Syed Shatifuddin Pirzada; Vol. I; page 411. Emphasis added throughout). Jinnah attended the Congress' annual session in Ahmedabad in 1921. The yarn requirement was another matter.

Jinnah knew what was at stake. He accurately predicted that the movement would divide the communities and breed disrespect for law and order. He supported the Khilafat cause, opposed the Ali brothers' methods, and gave up once Turkey made its own decision. He told the League: "We are not going to rest content until we have attained the fullest political freedom in our own country. Mr. Gandhi has placed his programme of non-cooperation, supported by the authority of the Khilafat Conference, before the country... . The operations of this scheme will strike at the individual in each of you, and therefore it rests with you alone to measure your strength and to weigh the pros and cons of the question before you arrive at a decision. But once you have decided to march, let there be no retreat under any circumstances... . One degrading measure upon another, disappointment upon disappointment, and injury upon injury, can lead a people only to one end. It led Russia to Bolshevism. It has led Ireland to Sinn Feinism. May it lead India to freedom... I would still ask the Government not to drive the people of India to desperation, or else there is no other course left open to the people except to inaugurate the policy of non-cooperation, though not necessarily the programme of Mr. Gandhi."

He convened a meeting of representative Muslims in Delhi in March 1927, which put forth four major demands. One of these was for a one-third representation in the Central Legislature. A committee of the Congress, set up to examine their import, accepted the demands. Its members were Motilal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Maulana Mohammed Ali and Srinivasa Iyengar. The AICC accepted the committee's views with minor changes.

The Hindu Mahasabha led by Madan Mohan Malaviya opposed these demands, as did Muslims in some provinces. Opposition to the Simon Commission divided the League, but Jinnah supported the Congress in the campaign to boycott this all-White body. The alternative constitutional proposals adopted in the famous Nehru Report dashed Jinnah's hopes. The Report did not even refer to Jinnah's proposals, or to their acceptance by the Congress. Jinnah now put forth his 14-points. Their rejection and his personal humiliation at the All-Parties Convention are chapters in a story told several times over. (For a crisp, documented account vide Uma Kaura's classic Muslims, and Indian Nationalism; Manohar; 1977.)

Three myths must be laid to rest. First, it did not mark "a parting of ways". Jinnah said in his speech at the Convention: "We are all sons of the soil. We have to live together... If we cannot agree, let us at any rate agree to differ, but let us part as friends." The second myth is that soon after this Convention, "Jinnah found himself in the company of the Aga Khan" and other reactionaries. The Aga Khan convened an All-India Muslim Conference in Delhi on December 31, 1928, around the same time as the All-Parties Convention on the Nehru Report in Calcutta. Wolpert `records' how Jinnah came late, looked around and what he wore. It is a fabrication. While the Ali brothers and even radicals like the Leftist poet Maulana Hasrat Mohani participated, in sheer disgust at the outcome of the Calcutta Convention, Jinnah did not. He had rejected the invitation brusquely.

The third is about Motilal Nehru's attitude. His letter to Gandhi on August 14, 1929, reported his talks with the Hindu Mahasabha leaders: "We agreed that the Hindu opposition to the Muslim demands was to continue and even be stiffened up by the time the Convention was held." He concluded: "You will see that the stumbling block in our way is this question of one-third Muslim representatives and on this point even the most advanced Musalmans like Dr. M.A. Ansari, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Mr. T.A.K. Sherwani and others are all very strongly in favour of the concession. I would therefore ask you to direct your attention now to the Mahasabha leaving Ali Brothers and Mr. Jinnah to stew in their own juice." (The Indian Nationalist Movement 1885 - 1947; Select Documents; edited by B.N. Pandey; Macmillan; pages. 63-64). This document establishes that: the convention failed because of the Hindu Mahasabha's obduracy; Motilal Nehru cooperated with the Mahasabha leaders though he saw no harm in the demand; and the "advanced Musalmans" failed to stand up to the Congress leaders for the community's rights, which Jinnah did without falling in the Aga Khan's camp of pro-British reactionaries. This is what made Jinnah truly unique - clarity of thought, moral courage, and sturdy, uncompromising independence. These were the qualities that made him so formidable an adversary later and so tragic in his fall from the ideals he once espoused.

Jinnah continued to cooperate with Gandhi even after Nagpur. In December 1929, he went all the way to Sabarmati Ashram to discuss the Viceroy's announcement of a Round Table Conference. Documents published recently show Jinnah pleading with the Viceroy on his behalf and that of the Congress in 1929-30. "I am left with the impression that Mr. Gandhi himself is responsible," he wrote.

His wife Ruttie's death in her 30th year, on February 20, 1929, shook Jinnah to the core. He withdrew from society and became distant. To think that it changed his political outlook is to underestimate the man's commitment and to fly in the face of the record. Even in 1937, eight years later, he saw "no difference between the ideals of the Muslim League and of the Congress, the ideal being complete freedom for India".

On July 21, 1937, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to Rajendra Prasad: "During the general election in U.P. [United Provinces] there was not any conflict between the Congress and the Muslim League." With characteristic Nehruvian consistency, he proposed "the winding up of the Muslim League group in the U.P. and its absorption in the Congress".

In later years, Azad professing, as ever, superior wisdom pinned the blame on Nehru. It was Azad, not Nehru, who gave the surrender terms to Khaliquzzaman: the League's group "shall cease to function as a separate group" (for the text vide Indian Politics 1936-1942; by R. Coupland; Oxford University Press; page 111). Sapru's letter to B. Shiva Rao of The Hindu, dated November 16, 1940, referred to his experience of "party dictatorship or Congress Ministries wherever they have existed... . So long as these people were in power they treated everybody else with undisguised contempt". That experience led him to believe that the "Western type of majority rule in India will not do. And we shall have to come to some arrangement by which we may take along with us the minorities in matters of general interest" (Crusader for Self-Rule; Rima Hooja; Rawat Publishers; page 280). This is precisely what Jinnah came to hold and for the same reason - the Congress' refusal to share power.

He had received short shrift from Gandhi and the British at the Round table Conference in London and decided in desperation to settle down there. Returning to India, he arrived at a pact with Rajendra Prasad in 1934, in which he abandoned separate electorates. In the light of 1928, he insisted that the Congress secure the Mahasabha's assent as well (for the text vide Marguerite Dove's Forfeited Future; page 462). Nehru, however, went so far as to assert: "There are only two parties in the county, the Congress and the government." Jinnah retorted: "There is a third party in the country and that is the Muslims." If in 1928 Jayakar questioned Jinnah's credentials as a representative, in 1937 Nehru did likewise: "May I suggest to Mr. Jinnah that I come into greater touch with the Muslim masses than most of the members of the League." The Congress, at one remove Nehru himself, represented everybody and would lay down the terms for the future.

Jinnah accepted the challenge and built up through mass politics a representative capacity that stunned all. Nothing in his past should have surprised any. Men like Mohammed Iqbal and Maulana Mohammed Ali had come to regard him as the "only" Muslim leader. At the League's session in October 1937, Jinnah pleaded: "Let the Congress first bring all principal communities in the country and all principal classes of interest under its leadership." He had in mind, not merger, but "a pact", a concept he had "always believed in". But Nehru had no use for "pacts" between "handfuls of upper-class people". Jinnah, in his view, represented them alone. There really was no "minority problem". The people were concerned with bread and butter. Economic issues alone mattered.

Jinnah laid bare his heart in a much neglected speech at Aligarh in February 1938 in which he recalled the past: "At that time there was no pride in me and I used to beg from the Congress." The first "shock" came at the RTC; the next, in 1937. "The Musalmans were like the No Man's land. They were led by either the flunkeys of the British government or the camp-followers of the Congress... . The only hope for minorities is to organise themselves and secure a definite share in power to safeguard their rights and interests."

He had said in October 1937 that "all safeguards and settlements would be a scrap of paper unless they were backed up by power". In Britain the parties alternate in holding power. "But such is not the case in India. Here we have a permanent Hindu majority... ."

This is where Jinnah's recipe went disastrously wrong. The solution lay, not in aggravating the communal divide by his two-nation theory; but in the tactics of the Jinnah of old - mobilise both communities, espouse secular values and seek protection for the rights of all minorities as Dr. B.R. Ambedkar had urged him to do.

Jinnah refashioned the League and made it a progressive body. He told the students at the AMU: "What the League has done is to set you free from the reactionary elements of Muslims and to create the opinion that those who play their selfish game are traitors. It has certainly freed you from that undesirable element of Maulvis and Maulanas. I am not speaking of Maulvis as a whole class. There are some of them who are as patriotic and sincere as any other but there is a section of them which is undesirable. Having freed ourselves from the clutches of the British government, the Congress, the reactionaries and so-called Maulvis, may I appeal to the youth to emancipate our women." Later he delivered "a warning to the landlords and capitalists who have flourished at our expense" (J. Ahmad; Vol. I; pages 39, 43 and 507).

What was his alternative, the Viceroy asked Jinnah. He replied on October 5, 1939, that "an escape from the impasse ... lay in the adoption of Partition". His article in Time and Tide of London on January 19, 1940, spoke of "two nations who must both share in the governance of their common motherland... so that the present enmities may cease and India may take its part amongst the great nations of the world" - as one nation. An identical contradiction was made in his speech of August 11, 1947: "a nation of 400 million". The Pakistan Resolution of March 23, 1940, did not refer to the two-nation theory that Jinnah now began to advocate with greater stridency. It envisaged in the last paragraph an interim centre prior to partition, which Ambedkar alone noted. Even 24 hours before its adoption, the draft provided for a limited centre (vide the writer's article, "The Partition of India"; Frontline; January 4, 2002).

In a real sense our leaders were a profoundly ignorant and arrogant lot. They failed the crucial test which Edmund Burke propounded in his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents written in 1770. He held that "the temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought to be the first duty of a Statesman. And the knowledge of this temper it is by no means impossible for him to attain, if he has not an interest in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn".

It is not any "interest" alone which prevents self-education. So does Hubris. Jinnah, Gandhi and Nehru were men of colossal pride and vanity beyond the ordinary. Jinnah should have known that besides the inherent falsity of the poisonous concept, a nationalism based on religion degenerates into violent sectarianism. Gandhi acting as "the supreme leader" never seriously strove for conciliation in a plural society. Nehru denied the validity of the concept itself. Both spurned Jinnah. He painted himself into a corner from which he did not know how to escape.

We know in retrospect how and why things went wrong. Jinnah did not devise a formula for power-sharing in a united India. The Congress was adamant against sharing power with him. Nehru forgot the lessons of 1914 when socialists expected the workers to rise against their governments when they went to war. The workers turned out to be more chauvinistic than the "upper classes". So it was with communal feeling in a deeply religious society which Nehru least understood. Neither did Jinnah. He espoused the two-nation theory. While its consequences affect India, it holds his own state hostage.

We now find the problem of a "permanent majority" in all plural societies in Europe, Asia and Africa. On December 20, 1986, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's spokesman in Madras (now Chennai) said "two nations... coexist in one country". The LTTE does not propound sincerely a "viable alternative to Eelam", though.

Arend Lijphart's seminal work, Democracy in Plural Societies, published in 1982, propounded the concept of "consociational democracy". This would have been unthinkable to the Congress. It implied a national pact on power sharing. Safeguards are not enough. Empowerment is crucial.

From 1906 to 1936, the basis for discourse on the minority problem in India was a pact on safeguards for the minorities. What Jinnah said at the RTC in London on September 5, 1931, was conventional wisdom then: "The new Constitution should provide for reasonable guarantees to Muslims and if they are not provided, the new Constitution is sure to break down." Jawaharlal Nehru had no patience with anything that preceded his arrival on the scene of Indian politics. In a letter to Gandhi on September 11, 1931, he branded Jinnah's proposition as "narrow communalism".

Nehru's was a nationalism that denied the very fundamentals of Indian society, so far removed was he from the realities. Even Jinnah's moderation in 1931 was of no avail against Nehru's obdurate refusal to recognise that minorities were entitled to some rights. Nehru's was an absolutist secularism garnished with a socialism that he could only dimly perceive. A colossal intellectual failure all round produced a tragedy of cataclysmic proportions. Tragedy, it has been said, lies not so much in the conflict between good and evil as between one good force and another.

Like Nehru, Jinnah also shattered the established basis of discourse. Nehru did so on the minorities' rights, Jinnah on India's unity; Nehru in arrogant ignorance, Jinnah in arrogant reliance on his tactical skills. Jinnah's greatness lay in the pre-1940 record when he was a tireless conciliator, a real statesman. Both men were secularists. Therein lies the tragedy. Nehru harmed secularism by denying the legitimacy of minority rights. Jinnah ruined it by the two-nation theory.

The leaders drifted apart not only politically but also in personal estrangement. After 1937, Jinnah's rhetoric became abusive. Gandhi did not spare comments of a personal nature, either. In the aftermath of Partition, rhetoric on both sides, Indian and Pakistani, verged on abuse. Pakistanis questioned Nehru's sincerity as a secularist. On the Indian side, a portrait of Jinnah came to be painted of a man rude, arrogant and bereft of humanity. Sarojini Naidu's was a portrait of a man of deep sensitivity and refinement: "a naive and eager humanity, an intuition quick and tender as a woman's, a humour gay and winning as a child's".

Unlike Chagla, Jinnah's other junior, Yusuf Meheralli, went to prison and courageously argued back with him. But he never denigrated Jinnah. He told an American reporter: "After half an hour's conversation with Jinnah one returns a devotee." Men as diverse as V.P. Menon, Frank Moraes, P.B. Gajendragadkar, A.S.R. Chari, Mohammed Yunus and M.O. Mathai have testified to Jinnah's warmth and impeccable good manners. He would argue patiently with the young.

The great short-story writer Sadat Hasan Manto interviewed Jinnah's chauffeur and wrote an essay, "Mera Saheb" (My Boss), which was published in a collection called Ganje Farishte (Bald Angels). An English translation was published in the Illustrated Weekly of India of February 10, 1985, by Mr. Ghazeli (a pen name, of course). It reveals a man intensely human and in pain. Whenever memories of his dead wife and estranged daughter possessed him, their clothes would be spread out on the carpet for a while. He would then walk to his bedroom, wiping tears. Memoirs of his ADC Ata Rabhani, I was the Quaid's ADC (Oxford University Press; 1996) reveal a clubbable gentleman.

But the caricature of "whiskey, pork and Savile Row suit" came to stay. No one mentioned two respected Congress presidents who were devotees of Bachus. One, a man of religion, was a notorious alcoholic; the other, a lawyer, was a notorious addict. In a state of inebriation he once kicked a bucket containing food; the guests fled. Jinnah's neighbour in New Delhi, Sir Sobha Singh, recalled that he always drank in strict moderation.

Remember, Jinnah was eagerly sought after to sit on committees. A good committee man must be a good listener with a talent for compromise. No one cares to ask why it was that while Jinnah got along famously with Tilak, Malaviya and Lajpat Rai, he had problems with Gandhi. "Lalaji had generally not much difficulty in working with M.A. Jinnah." They would walk into each other's room with ease "sometimes several times in the course of the same day... and go together to Malaviyaji to continue the discussion" (Lajpat Rai by Feroz Chand; Publications Division; page 499).

That people were surprised when Jinnah's stout defence of Bhagat Singh in the Assembly was brought to light recently shows how little he was understood. "The man who goes on a hunger strike has a soul. He is moved by that soul" and was prepared to die for the cause, Jinnah thundered. Few had as good a record on civil liberties. "I thoroughly endorse the principle, that while this measure should aim at those undesirable persons who indulge in wanton vilification or attack upon the religion of any particular class or upon the founders and prophets of a religion, we must also secure this very important and fundamental principle that those who are engaged in historical works, those who are engaged in bonafide and honest criticisms of a religion shall be protected" (CW, Vol. III, page 208). (Vide the writer's essay "Jinnah's commitment to liberalism"; Economic and Political Weekly; January 13, 1990.)

Yet, it is doubtful if, in the entire history of India's struggle for freedom, anyone else has been subjected to such a sustained, determined denigration and demonisation as Jinnah has been from 1940 to this day, by almost everyone - from the leaders at the very top to academics and journalists. In his Autobiography Nehru maliciously caricatured him as one who distrusted, if not disliked, the masses and attributed to him a suggestion, he "once privately" made, that "only matriculates should be taken into the Congress". No authority for this palpable falsehood is cited. Jinnah was not one to make such a remark privately which went against his entire outlook. Nehru wrote thus in 1936. Nearly two decades earlier Jinnah's strong assertion to the contrary was made publicly and in London on August 13, 1919, in his evidence before the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the Government of India Bill.

The Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu was downright rude: "Question 3633: How long have you been in public life Mr. Jinnah? - (Answer) Since I was twenty-one (i.e. 1897). 3634: Have you ever known any proposal come from any government which met with your approval? - Oh, Yes... 3636: You must have felt very uncomfortable?... "

Major Ormsby "Q 3810: You speak really as an Indian Nationalist? - I do." Lord Islington asked: "Q 3884: You would say that there are people in India who though they may be not literate, have a sufficient interest in the welfare of the country to entitle them to a vote? - I think so, and I think they have a great deal of common sense... . I was astonished when I attended a meeting of mill hands in Bombay when I heard some of the speeches, and most of them were illiterates." Could such a man have made the suggestion Nehru attributed to him in 1936? Not surprisingly, in 1937 Jinnah converted the League into a mass organisation, pledged to complete independence.

Interestingly, the next day Jinnah took his wife Ruttie to the theatre. He had as a student performed in plays and even toyed with the idea of becoming an actor. When they returned home, a little after midnight Ruttie gave birth to their daughter Dina. It was on August 14-15, 1919, a devoted friend of both recorded (Ruttie Jinnah: The Story of a Great Friendship; Kanji Dwarkadas; page 18).

Addressing the League in 1924, Jinnah proudly noted that "the ordinary man in the street has found his political consciousness". He mentioned "Mahatma Gandhi" and threatened that if the British did not respond Indians should "as a last resort make the government by legislature impossible" and resort to "parliamentary obstruction and constitutional deadlocks". This was the language of a Congressman, not liberals like Sapru.

Most of Jinnah's friends were non-Muslim and they remembered him affectionately. Kanji Dwarkadas' two volumes of memoirs, India's Fight for Freedom and Ten Years to Freedom, are well documented. K.M. Munshi said "Jinnah warned Gandhiji not to encourage the fanaticism of Muslim religious leaders" in the Khilafat movement. He wrote in his Pilgrimage to Freedom (1968): "When Gandhiji forced Jinnah and his followers out of the Home Rule League and later the Congress, we all felt, with Jinnah that a movement of an unconstitutional nature, sponsored by Gandhiji with the tremendous influence he had acquired over the masses, would inevitably result in widespread violence, barring the progressive development of self-governing institutions based on a partnership between educated Hindus and Muslims. To generate coercive power in the masses would only provoke mass conflict between the two communities, as in fact it did. With his keen sense of realities Jinnah firmly set his face against any dialogue with Gandhiji on this point."

Even so Jinnah did not part company with him. Three other episodes followed - the Nehru Report, the RTC in London, and the Congress' arrogance of power (1937-39). He appealed to Gandhi in 1937, through B.G. Kher, to tackle the situation. Jinnah drew a blank.

Belatedly, on December 6, 1945, Gandhi confided to the Governor of Bengal, R.G. Casey: "Jinnah had told him that he (Gandhi) had ruined politics in India by dragging up a lot of unwholesome elements in Indian life and giving them political prominence, that it was a crime to mix up politics and religion the way he had done."

In 1936, even as he set out mobilising Muslim support, Jinnah refused to exploit the Shahidganj Mosque issue in Lahore and doused the fires. Jinnah was no Advani (vide the author's article "Ayodhya in reverse"; Frontline, February 16, 2000). The Governor of Punjab wrote: "I am greatly indebted to the efforts of Mr. Jinnah for this improvement and I wish to pay an unqualified tribute to the work he has done and is doing."

Pothan Joseph was handpicked by Jinnah to be Editor of the League's organ Dawn. He recalled that "there was no trace of pressure or censure and he was anxious to test his views by inviting criticism in the seclusion of his drawing room... the notion of his having been a common bully in argument is fantastic, for the man was a great listener... he was really a man with a heart, but determined never to be duped or see friends let down. He didn't care a hang about being misrepresented as Mir Jaffer or Judas Iscariot. No one could buy him nor would he allow himself to be betrayed by a kiss."

Amazingly, Jinnah's superb record as an MP remains yet to be studied - as a member of the Central Legislative Assembly he spoke on a variety of subjects; the Motor Vehicles and the Post Office Acts included. On March 10, 1930, he denounced the restrictive orders imposed on Vallabhbhai Patel and on January 22, 1935, the detention of Sarat Bose. He emulated the combative style of British MPs. The British, arrogant as ever, resented it. Indians, thin-skinned, took it personally.

Dewan Chaman Lall, a close friend for 30 years and a noted Congress MP, recalled Jinnah's efforts for settlement before and after 1940 and said in 1950: "He was a lovable, unsophisticated man, whatever may be said to the contrary. And he was unpurchasable."

Sarojini Naidu did not change her opinion of the man even after he began to advocate partition. She described him at a press conference in Madras on January 18, 1945, as the one incorruptible man in the whole of India. "I may not agree with him, but if there is one who cannot be bought by title, honour or position, it is Mr. Mohammed Ali Jinnah." Predictably Nehru was "upset" by her "excessively foolish speech" (SWJN: First Series; Vol. 13, page 546).

Surely, any decent biography, any honest appraisal must reckon with the entire record. No serious effort has been made to explain the change. Why did a man who wrote on March 17, 1938, that "it is the duty of every true nationalist, to whichever party or community he may belong, to help achieve a united front" against the British advocate the partition of India on March 23, 1940? Why, indeed?

The reason is not hard to seek. Jinnah was an Indian nationalist who did not believe that nationalism meant turning one's back on the rights of one's community. The Congress stipulated that, virtually. Its shabby record on Muslims in the Congress bears recalling; some day Jinnah lost his balance, abandoned Indian nationalism and inflicted on both his nation and his community harm of lasting consequences. Nehru, in contrast, stood by the secular ideal till his dying day.

Pakistanis, on the other hand, wilfully shut their eyes to Jinnah's grave mistakes and canonise him. They overlook the damage inflicted on Pakistan itself, let alone the Muslims of India. Jinnah's record from 1906 to 1940 does not obliterate the record of 1940-48 any more than Nehru's brave fight, against all odds, for secularism in India or Gandhi's conscious choice of martyrdom alters the record prior to 1947. Gandhi knew his life was in peril, but did not compromise and did not flinch one bit.

The record prior to 1940 only deepens the tragedy that befell Jinnah, and because of him, the India he loved and the community whose interests he sought to advance. Responsibility for the partition was not his exclusively; but his share was enormous.

The League's Resolution of March 23, 1940, brought partition into the realm of the possible. The collapse of the Cabinet Mission's Plan of May 16, 1946, for a united India dragged it into the abyss of inevitability. For this, Jinnah was not a bit responsible. That phase deserves a closer study than it has received.

Indians and Pakistanis must come to terms with Jinnah's record in its entirety. He was of a heroic mould but fell prey to bitterness and the poison that bitterness breeds. In the present age, some will be talking of his virtues; others of his failings alone. Posterity alone will do him justice.

Some day, the verdict of history on Jinnah will be written definitively. When it is written, that verdict will be in the terms Gibbon used for Belisarius: "His imperfections flowed from the contagion of the times; his virtues were his own, the free gift of nature or reflection. He raised himself without a master or a rival and so inadequate were the arms committed to his hand, that his sole advantage was derived from the pride and presumption of his adversaries" (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; The Modern Library; Vol. II, page 240).

[The analysis 'Assessing Jinnah' written by AG Noorani was published in FRONTLINE Volume 22 - Issue 17, Aug 13 - 26, 2005.]

Australian Muslim community on course to establish first Islamic retail bank

2009-08-20T00:37:00.004+05:30

By Danish Ahmad Khan

Muslim community in Australia is making headway towards strengthening the principles of Islamic Banking & Finance in the country. The move is being seen as a credible and viable alternative to the offers currently available in the marketplace. The Muslim Community Cooperative Australia (MCCA) has announced its intention to turn itself into Australia’s first Islamic retail bank.

The MCCA recently held a symposium that was inaugurated by Australia’s Assistant Federal Treasurer Nick Sherry. Speaking on the occasion, Sherry said, “Australia has over 400,000 Muslims. Islamic finance was an area of growing interest in the country. The offering of retail Islamic finance products contributed to fostering social inclusion, by enabling Australian Muslims to access products that may be more consistent with their principles and beliefs as well as widening the choice of products for non-Muslims.” The Government in Canberra has also expressed an interest in the development of Islamic banking as its popularity continues to grow in Australia.

MCCA chairman Dr. Akhtar Kalam outlined the objectives of the MCCA saying that the organization was too big to remain a cooperative and yet too small to become a bank. Kalam said that the move to turn MCCA into Australia’s first Islamic retail bank would be hastened as more and more consumers are now turning to the principles of Islamic Banking & Finance as an alternative to the current offers in the marketplace. Under Islamic law, charging interest on a loan is forbidden.

"I am confident that the Islamic principles of ethical investment and finance will be immensely attractive to Australian Muslims and non Muslims and in doing so, provide the momentum that will ensure MCCA's goal is realized to be our nation's first retail Islamic bank. The MCCA would work with the federal government to address the challenges and find an Islamic Finance and Banking solution," Kalam said.

The MCCA was founded in the early 1990s. It was initially funded by shareholders but now borrows from non-banking lenders. The key achievement of the MCCA being that it has helped hundreds of Muslim families in Australia buy a home.

The symposium was held in early July, and was the largest seminar on Islamic finance that Australia ever hosted. The symposium was attended by more than 200 delegates and speakers from various countries, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The symposium has been held at a time when the world is in the throes of recession as also the big international banks trying to explore the opportunities that the Shariah system offers to help tide over the crisis. It may be noted that Sharia-compliant banking is a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry, and is commonplace in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Nail Aykan, a key figure of MCCA in Melbourne, addressing the gathering pointed out that the services being provided by the MCCA can help prevent further global economic meltdowns. Aykan believes that an ethical system that eschews the payment of interest in adherence to Islamic principles can help conventional banks steer a more stable and less greedy course.

"There have been many studies done to prove that Islamic banking could have avoided the global financial crisis. The Islamic banks have fared much, much better in this recession. There is a lot that the conventional world is now studying to see how it could do things better or differently to potentially avoid another global crisis," Nail Aykan said and added, "As the Muslim world is rediscovering its faith, people are coming to the realisation that they must make every possible effort to avoid interest and, hence, in the last decade there has been an incredible demand from the Muslim world for an alternative banking model."

Aykan is confident that the MCCA, being in existence for around 18 years, would be able to become the first Islamic bank in Australia – a fully fledged retail bank. Aykan said, "It will be a great opportunity because the demand is so huge. There are 400,000 Muslims living in Australia, which equates to about 80,000 families. It is estimated that around 80 per cent of those families own a home either outright or have a loan, so the market to refinance those conventional mortgages to Sharia-compliant finance is huge. The numbers speak for themselves."

Earlier, Melbourne’s La Trobe University recognized the community’s growing enthusiasm for religiously sensitive banking and set up Australia’s first master’s programme in Islamic finance. Ishaq Bhatti, Associate Professor in La Trobe University, has devised the curriculum for this master’s programme. Bhatti is an expert in both Islamic and conventional economics, accounting, financial management and analysis. The aim of the postgraduate course is to train a generation of thinkers capable of developing and exploiting a fusion of different banking cultures.

Bhatti explains, “Islamic banking is, in fact, ethical banking when people get sick of mortgages and interest rates and so they look for an alternative and Islamic banking can do that. Marrying or integrating conventional finance with Islamic finance would be better for the future of the world’s banking system. It has the potential to absorb such a financial shock that the world is currently facing.”

The capacity of a new banking structure to avoid succumbing to bad debt or toxic loans could depend on the renegotiation of contracts, which gives the Islamic model crucial flexibility, especially when times are hard. “When households are unable to pay their mortgages and businesses are unable to pay their interest in times of crisis, in Islamic finance there is a possibility to renegotiate the terms and conditions of the loan. It takes care of borrowers’ circumstances especially in the financial crisis as the world is currently facing. When a system fails, people start looking for alternatives and Islamic banking has been there for more than three decades. As an alternative system it has a chance to succeed. Obviously it is not at that level where it can make enormous contributions right away, but in the next decade or so Islamic banking practices could contribute to the banking system of the world,” an economics expert said.

Seeking a fair deal for Muslims

2009-08-19T16:00:00.003+05:30

By Amar Singh

The Rajindar Sachar Committee’s report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community in India struck a blow to the Congress’ democratic and secularist assertions made over the decades. It lays out the actual conditions the Muslim minority faces and how it lags behind in terms of human development indicators.

It reports that only a small percentage of them are in government service and involved in areas of socio-political life.

The community has been reduced to a sort of political working capital in the hands of the big political parties. According to the report, Muslims need assistance at all levels. They face deprivation in terms of habitation facilities, access to bank credit and also political decision-making power.

Since Independence, India has seen many commissions and committees constituted to resolve the problems of the minorities, especially Muslims. The Ram Sahay Commission on Muslim weavers, the Srikrishna Commission and the Gopal Singh Commission were formed during Congress governments, but their reports are gathering dust. Such moves constitute nothing but political stunts with empty promises for the vulnerable minority. It is obvious that the Sachar Committee report will meet the same fate.

But this is the first commission to have studied the roots of the problems the Muslim community is facing and what the government has done for it in the last 50 years. Ghettoisation and insecurity have grown among Muslims after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. As a result, the percentage of Muslim children attending school and university has significantly gone down.

The follow-up on the report has taken on political hues, with the Congress using it as a tool to woo the minorities and the BJP raising concerns over the figures mentioned in it. But what has the Congress done for the minorities during all these years? It claims to be a champion of secularism but has used the term only as a euphemism to appease Muslims and secure their votes.

The Sachar report should be an eye-opener for big political parties like the Congress and the BJP, which are using the Muslim issue as a device of vote-bank politics.

After Independence and during Congress rule, there was talk of a classified circular which directed that no Muslim be appointed to senior-level positions in the defence forces. The Congress had created such a stir for a long period of time so that Muslims would be forced to leave India. Further, an imprudent game was played by the communal forces during Jawaharlal Nehru’s rule with the clandestine support of the administration and the police. This continued for almost 30 years, creating fear and anxiety among the minorities. The communal clashes that took thousands of human lives and destroyed property worth crores of rupees were the consequences of this game. The Congress appointed commission after commission to investigate the communal riots, but none of the big perpetrators has been convicted.

Instead of punishing the culprits, the police and the administration invariably prosecuted the innocent Muslim victims. The fear and anxiety this caused, and the cavalier approach of the government, resulted in low levels of progress among Muslims in education and commerce. During a span of 50 years, the entire community has been pushed into a vacuum of illiteracy and unemployment.

The fervour of backward class politics of the Congress waned in the wake of the Mandal and Mandir issues. Now it is seeking to widen its base while leading a coalition government. It has moved for other backward classes quota in higher educational institutions and talked of reservation for Muslims.

The Congress’ efforts for the progress of the minorities have been proved hollow, particularly in the Hindi heartland. On the contrary, the smaller parties, including the Samajwadi Party, the Telugu Desam Party and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and the Left parties, have brought several benefits to Muslims. The SP has time and again asked for affirmative action on the basis of the Sachar Committee report. They should be encouraged to participate in the process of economic growth. The report is a revolutionary step to uplift the minorities in India, and if the Government of India implements its recommendations, that will boost India’s secular democracy.

It is to be seen how sincerely and resolutely the United Progressive Alliance government will pursue the agenda it has laid out. Should the findings be put in deep freeze, leaving the secular and vibrant democratic future of India in a disastrous state? According to the Director of the Centre for Policy Research, Professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the report not only reflects the poor human index of Indian Muslims but indicates the vacuum of Indian governance. It points to the poor development of infrastructure facilities such as electricity and telecommunications services in areas of Muslim habitation. Muslims are not represented enough in the civil services, in banks, in other public sector undertakings, in the judiciary and in the agencies involved with national security tasks. The Central government needs to coordinate with State governments to pool resources and formulate such policies as would help translate their developmental regression into progress.

The Sachar Committee has suggested that a commission examine the livelihood problems faced by Muslims. But apart from instituting a committee of experts, the Congress has made no substantive effort in this direction. Proper representation of the minorities, especially Muslims, in the police and defence forces will prove to be a morale-booster for them in terms of their safety and security issues, but this has not been looked into. As per the committee’s recommendation, the Congress government has promised to open schools, training institutes and banks, provide free education up to the age of 14 and create infrastructure in areas populated by Muslims. But that promise now lies in cyberspace.

The report mentions that representation for the Muslim community to the same order as the percentage of Muslims in the population of the country is found only in one place: in jails. The fact that this is true can be seen now in Congress-ruled States such as Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Many innocent Muslim youth of Mumbai and Hyderabad are in jail only on the basis of suspicion. There is hardly any effort being made by the respective governments to provide them legal aid.

In the context of the report, the Congress is trying to play the role of a messiah for Muslims. These represent nothing but tokenism. The Action Taken Report on the Sachar Committee report is but a post-dated cheque. As ever, the Congress wants to use Muslims as a vote bank. It is not really bothered of their rights or their welfare.

There are many areas where work needs to be done for the growth and development of the Muslim community, such as the provision of basic infrastructure facilities in education, health, road and drinking water, employment generation, safety, promotion of the Urdu language, modernisation of madrassa education and the separation of politics from community development.

In the present situation, the SP strives to continue the efforts it has undertaken to work for the minorities and the downtrodden. The party stands for the empowerment of the poor, the minorities, and the marginalised sections that were the worst victims of exploitation due to the lopsided policies pursued by successive governments at the Centre. Muslims want to live a respectable life without any political prejudice. They know how to carry themselves in the present conditions and how to uplift themselves and grow. The government has to support them in different spheres of activity.

The SP wants the implementation of the Sachar Committee report in toto. A high-power expert committee representing all political parties should be constituted to look into the implementation of the recommendations.

[Amar Singh is general secretary of the Samajwadi Party. He wrote this article from a hospital in Singapore while undergoing treatment. The article was published in The Hindu dated August 17, 2009]

2009-08-19T15:41:00.000+05:30

On Islam and Gender Equality

By Yoginder Sikand

Salbiah Ahmad is a trained civil and shariah Malay woman lawyer. She practiced for several years in Singapore and taught briefly at the International Islamic University, Kuala Lumpur. Involved with human rights issues for over two decades, she writes for a range of Malaysian and international newspapers and websites.

Critical Thoughts on Islam, Rights and Freedom in Malaysia is a collection of Ahmads essays published over the years on the Malaysian activist website www.malaysiakini.com. A major focus of the book is a critique of patriarchal interpretations of Islam and an articulation of what could be called a gender-sensitive Islamic theology (kalam) and jurisprudence (fiqh). In this way, Ahmad seeks to provide an Islamically-grounded argument for gender equality. This she does for broadly two reasons: as a strategy to develop consensus on womens rights, speaking in an Islamic language in order present gender justice as Islamically acceptable, even mandated, to believing Muslims; and as a reflection of her own personal religious consciousness and conviction as a Muslim woman.

Ahmad believes that in a Muslim-majority country like Malaysia, working for gender justice from within an Islamic paradigm is indispensable, since public discourse is heavily conditioned by Islam, a phenomenon that gender activists can ignore at their own peril. To do so would render them irrelevant to most Muslims, and lay them open to the charge of being irreligious and of allegedly undermining Islam. There is thus an urgent need to enter the realm of Islamic discourse and seek to promote gender-justice using appropriate Islamic arguments. At the same time, Ahmad suggests, this strategy is not a substitute for secular human rights activism for gender justice. Rather than seeing the two approaches as necessarily mutually exclusive, she argues for a synergy through which they can work together in tandem for common goals, considering them to be options depending on the situation at hand.

Interestingly, Ahmad does not claim to be an Islamic feminist (Feminism is not my new religion, she says), but acknowledges that it has shaped her understanding of Muslim womens oppression, providing a lens through which to critique unequal, and what she regards as un-Quranic, power relations between Muslim men and women. She disagrees with Muslims who see feminism as an attempt to discredit Islam or who interpret it as standing for enmity between men and women and as a Western conspiracy to undermine Muslim society and culture.

Ahmad arrogates to herself the right to ijtihad, unencumbered by the opinions of the classical ulema. Like the others, she approaches the Quran directly, bypassing the tradition of fiqh as well as the Hadith, because these two latter sources of kalam and fiqh contain numerous prescriptions and views that militate against her understanding of gender relations, some of which have been manufactured precisely in order to justify womens subordination. She does not regard the Quran as a closed text, whose interpretation has been frozen, settled once and for all, at some distant moment in the past. Rather, she sees it and the Sunnah as what she calls works in movement, that, like all other texts, can be, and indeed, have been, interpreted in diverse ways. Rather than being a limitation, she suggests, this is actually a blessing in that in this way these fundamental sources of Islam are able to maintain their continuing relevance across space and time, providing guidance, in terms mainly of broad principles, that can suit changing socio-historical contexts. In this way, she is able to argue for her own interpretation of the sources that contradicts, in numerous ways, the dominant male Muslim discourse.

Ahmad argues that the basis of gender equality is contained in the Quran itself. The Quran, she says, treats men and women in exactly the same way. The Prophet Muhammad expressed this principle by declaring, Humans are equal as the teeth of a comb. This, and the upholding of the inherent dignity and integrity of every human person, must be, Ahmad says, the starting point of Quranic exegesis or tafsir. This exegesis must also be continuously informed by a contextually-sensitive of public interest or maslaha, which also includes gender-justice, which is one of the fundamental aims (maqasid) of the shariah.

In approaching the Quran, Ahmad suggests, one must also keep in mind that while the Quran represents the Absolute Truth to Muslims, it is impossible for human beings to gain a perfect, authoritative or absolute understanding of it. This is because the Divine revelation has to be interpreted by human beings, who, by their nature, are limited creatures and are influenced by their own social circumstances. Hence, it is inevitable that exegesis of the revelation can never be perfect. Since, traditionally, most Muslim exegetes have been men, heirs to a long-standing tradition of patriarchy, their understandings of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet have not escaped the fact of their gender and their patriarchal biases. This, Ahmad therefore argues, calls for a more gender-sensitive understanding of the Quran, in order not just to highlight womens concerns and perspectives but also to attempt to be more true to the intention of the Quran itself. Hence, Ahmad suggests, the need for Muslim women to study the text themselves directly, without relying on the tradition of patriarchal exegesis, and through the lens of adl or justice and balance, a fundamental principle of the Quran, which also includes justice between the genders.

The ontological equality of men and women in the eyes of God is something that is explicitly mentioned in the Quran. At the same time, however, there are verses in the text that could be interpreted to argue for different rights, roles and responsibilities of men and women, some of which have been interpreted by most Muslim male exegetes as legitmising what Ahmad sees as womens subordination. Ahmad claims that interpretations of the Quran (and Sunnah) that unfairly privilege males over their wives are tantamount to a violation of tawhid, the oneness of God, the very basic principle of Islam, that requires submission to God alone.

Ahmads way to reconcile these verses with what she regards as the mandate of gender justice is by calling for a critical distinction between verses that relate to the huquq Allah or rights of God (that pertain to matters between the individual and God, principally worship or ibadat), and those verses that relate to the rights of persons or huquq ul ibad, which include social affairs and relations (muamilat). She claims that while the former are unchangeable, the latter can change, particularly in order to uphold the Quranic mandate of justice. She evokes what she calls a powerful idea in the juristic notion that all matters in relation to rights of man or humankind is (sic.) the subject matter of muamalat (transactions) and thus negotiable. Curiously, she leaves unmentioned the source for this undoubtedly contestable claim, which not many traditional Muslim scholars would accept, for they would argue that any verse that is specifically mentioned in the Quran cannot be considered to be negotiable.

On the basis of her claim that Quranic verses that deal with muamilat can be changed or negotiated, if the changed context so demands in order to remain true to the Quranic principle of justicea claim for which she does not adduce any substantial evidence from within the Quran itselfAhmad argues for a change in certain rules regarding legal relating to women, claiming that traditional understandings of these verses have lost their relevance in todays context or that they do not properly reflect the intention of the Quran as she reads it.

One such contentious issue relates to women working out of their homes for a wage. The traditional fuqaha or Muslim jurisprudents allowed for this in only very extreme circumstances, but today in Malaysia Muslim women are to be found working in all sectors of the economy. Indeed, in many Malay families it is the wife that is the main bread-earner, and their families cannot manage with their income. Furthermore, Malay women are probably better educated, on the whole, than their men folk, as evidenced, for instance, by the fact that they outnumber Malay men in universities across the country. Given this, Ahmad argues, dominant notions of headship (qawwam) of the family need to be critiqued. Most male Muslim scholars rely on the following Quranic commandment to justify the claim that the family must remain under the authority of the husband:

Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means (Quran 4:34).

Ahmad engages in her own exegesis of this verse, departing considerably from the dominant male-centric interpretation. She argues that the verse does not stipulate that all males are guardians or are preferred to or superior to or are responsible for all women. It is true, she writes, that in some circumstances, some men are financially responsible for some women, as the verse indicates, but in other contexts, such as with the case of many Malaysian families today, some women may be financially responsible for some men and also for their children. This indicates, she says, that the rule that men are solely responsible for the maintenance of women is not valid universally. Engaging in a contextual reading of the verse, she argues that the notion of males as guardians over females, owing, in part to the latter being financially dependent on the former, was a product of the particular spatio-temporal context in which the Quran was revealed and which it directly addressed. Since the context has vastly changed today, she says, the notion need not be consider binding any longer. It is a cultural assumption, geared to a particular historical context, not a religious assumption that is valid for all contexts. Further, she argues, the assumption of male supremacy underlying dominant interpretations of qawwam as reflected in, for instance, traditional fiqh as well as in shariah law as it is officially administered in Malaysia, fails to reflect what she regards as the Qurans intention that marriage should be characterized by companionship and compassion between the spouses, without any element of hierarchy.

Ahmad engages in a similar contextual exegesis on the question of Muslim womens dress. Since the 1970s, as a result of the influence of various dakwah or Islamic movements, growing numbers of Malay women have taken to what is widely seen as Islamic dress, including the tudong or head-covering. Some even wear gloves and stockings and a few cover their entire face, too. Women not wearing what is regarded as Islamic dress are often looked down upon Westernised and as not truly Islamic. Interestingly, no such prejudices apply to Muslim mens dress. As in many other Muslim contexts, Islamic dress for women has become a symbol for Muslim community identity in Malaysia.

Ahmad critiques the notion of a single, prescribed Islamic dress, one that must be imposed on women even against their will. What Islam says about womens dress, she says, is always mediated by humans and is mostly gendered. Further, she writes, Muslim women should be allowed to choose what to wear on their own free will, for, she quotes the Quran as saying, Let there be no compulsion in religion (Quran 2:256). She claims that the purpose of the Quran in advising women to wear a cloak (jilbab) was not to conceal them, but, rather, to render them visible, hence recognizable, as a way to protect women, and in order to distinguish them from slave-women, who were routinely subjected to sexual abuse in pre-Islamic times. Ahmad argues that the notion that Muslim women alone must bear the responsibility of maintaining and publicly expressing Islamic identity by wearing Islamic dress is deeply problematic. This is something that must be shared by both males and females alike. She critiques those who insist that Islamic dress for women is essential in order to preserve their modesty for not applying the same standards with regard to the need for Muslim males, too, to preserve their modesty through appropriate sartorial codes. Further, while she does not appear to argue against the notion of modest dress, whether for women or men, Ahmad points out that the widely-held assumption that seventh century Arabian dress is alone what is Islamic is deeply problematic.

Ahmad argues that numerous laws in effect in Malaysia (and other countries) today that negatively impact on Muslim women are a product of traditional fiqh, which was largely a male product. Critiquing the tendency to equate fiqh, or what can be called the historical shariah, with the Divine shariah, she suggests that fiqh, being a human construct, a product of human reflection or ijtihad on the Quran and the Sunnah, can err. If it violates the basic aim of the Quran, which is justice, it can, indeed must, be suitably modified. The fuqaha of the fiqh schools were products of their own age, and it was inevitable that their opinions were influenced by the cultural, social, economic and political conditions of their times, including the fact of deep-rooted patriarchy. Some of them even changed their opinions on particular matters in the face of changed circumstances, thus suggesting that fiqh is not something stagnant, but, rather, can change as a result of changed conditions and demands. In order that fiqh respond creatively to the modern context, therefore, it is necessary to re-think fiqh in todays context, keeping in mind the vast transformations in gender relations, womens educational and economic status and the compelling need for gender justice and equity.

Not unexpectedly, Ahmad is bitterly critical of political and religious authorities who defend the application of several traditional fiqh prescriptions in the matter of family laws in the name of the shariah that, in her view, circumscribe, and even negate, what she regards as the Quranic stress on gender justice and equality. In this regard, Ahmad berates these authorities for turning down proposals to include marital rape as a punishable crime, accept women as shariah court judges, remove gender-biased clauses in the hudud laws, remove the male monopoly on declaring divorce, amend laws that require wives to submit to their husbands sexual demands against their will and maintenance on being arbitrarily accused of being disobedient to their husbands, arguing that their stance represents a blind adherence to traditional fiqh, a human and historical product, in the name of upholding the Divine shariah. She notes with dismay that because of this unwarranted conflation between fiqh and shariah or Islam itself, any voicing of criticism of fiqh can easily be branded as heresy, and even as apostasy, a punishable crime in many Muslim-majority countries. This thus is one of the biggest challenges facing the womens movement in Muslim countries, she suggests.

While she reluctantly notes certain positive legislation in this regard that has sought to improve Muslim womens legal status in several countries, she argues that the reform has not gone far enough. Once reason for this is because of methodological narrowness, with such reform being limited largely to borrowing from other Sunni jurisprudential schools in certain matters, which is hardly the paradigm shift in the notion of rights that she advocates. What she asks for is something much wider, not just in terms of substantive law, but, more than that, in legal methodology that would produce what she regards as a contextually-relevant gender-based fiqh , a product of a gender-sensitive Quranic exegesis, guided by the underlying notions of equality and justice in the Quran as well as by feminist theory.

Ahmad recognises that the gender-sensitive tafsir and fiqh that she calls for will not be easily accepted by traditionalist ulema as well as doctrinaire Islamists, who, finding these contrary to their understandings of the Islamic sources, may well consider them heretical. This is an issue related to the fundamental question of Islamic religious authority. Traditionalist ulema claim to have the sole authority to interpret Islam, but, Ahmad argues, Islam does not have any room for a priestly class that can monopolise religious interpretation and authority. Being human beings, the ulema, too, are liable to err and are not, in any way, infallible. Ahmad appears to controversially suggest that, contrary to what most traditional ulema would argue, every Muslim, male or female, has the right to interpret Islam based on a reasonably good understanding of its sources. One succeeds on sound grounds, not on ones calling, she says in this regard.

[Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Social Policy at the National Law School, Bangalore. He can be contacted on ysikand@yahoo.com]

For Muslims, graveyards become an election issue

2009-04-13T00:49:00.009+05:30

By Danish Ahmad Khan

Come elections – whether parliamentary of assembly – Muslims in India firm up their girdles and become ready to rake up their pet issues such as Babri Masjid, Gujarat riots, status of Urdu etc. This time even graveyards have become election issue, particularly in a Delhi parliamentary constituency, if not elsewhere. Members of Muslim community are up in arms over the issue of graveyard in Northeast Delhi parliamentary constituency from where Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded Haji Dilshad Ali as the party candidate for upcoming general elections. A decrepit Muslim graveyard for the Mustafabad, Kabir Nagar and Babarpur area will be at the top of agenda during electioneering. Locals in the areas complain that there is no boundary wall around the graveyard. Heaps of garbage can be seen strewn and street dogs loitering and sniffing around the graves looking for human remains. Sometimes the problem is such that the dogs in fact succeed in taking out the bones and skulls from the graves and feast on them. The leftovers keep rotting for days thus creating bad odour and polluting the environment. The issue has therefore become quite emotional and sensitive for local Muslims and the BSP candidate is also ready to cash upon this and use it extensively in his campaign. It may be recalled that Haji Dilshad Ali had contested the Delhi assembly elections from Babarpur constituency on BSP ticket last year and succeeded in getting 28,000 votes. During the upcoming parliamentary elections, the BSP has emerged as the only party in Delhi to provide tickets to three Muslim candidates namely Haji Yunus from East Delhi constituency, Haji Dilshad Ali from Northeast Delhi constituency and Mustakeem Ahmed (Billo) from the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency.

If one goes by what Delhi Wakf Board officials say the scarcity of graveyards is indeed a real problem for the Muslim community in India’s capital. Caretaker of Delhi Wakf Board’s mosques and graveyards Mehfooz Mohammad said, “At least 10 more graveyards are required now all over Delhi. Only a handful of them are operational today. Many of the graveyards have also been illegally occupied and litigation is underway to get the land back.” According to the 1970 gazette notification, 488 Muslim graveyards exist in Delhi. However, as of now there are only 25-30 graveyards that are actually operational. The gravity of the problem which Muslim community is facing insofar as graveyards are concerned can be really assessed by the available data. Another problem of the scarcity of graveyards are some members of the Muslim community themselves. According to the Shariah (Islamic law), Muslims are enjoined to make kuchha (temporary) graves in order to facilitate more burials in a particular grave. However, quite on the contrary, some members of the Muslim community openly defy the Shariah and make permanent concrete graves for their deceased kins. They also even go to the extent of erecting tombstones thus making it difficult to bury in layers. This leads to the space shortage in graveyards hence making the problem more severe.

It is not only India’s capital Delhi which is facing the problem of the scarcity of graveyards. Another metropolis Kolkata, the capital of the state of West Bengal, is also facing the same problem. Here the situation is equally grave. According to a report in Indian Express tension erupted in Paharpur under the Garden Reach police station area on 24 March 2009 after caretaker of a Muslim graveyard was found incinerating decomposed bodies to make room for new bodies. The locals, who arrived for the burial of a body around 3 pm, said that they smelt something burning inside the graveyard. Much to their dismay they found that some bones and skulls were found burning lying in a mound of dry grass and leaves. Later over 2,000 locals gathered at the graveyard and tried to beat the caretaker Sheikh Jumman. One of the residents alleged that the graveyard caretaker Sheikh Jumman and his assistant Sheikh Jiauddin resorted to the practice of setting the bodies on fire only to make room for more bodies so that they could earn more money. The residents complained that the graveyard had a severe shortage of space since the ground had been full for the last one year. However, the police arrived on the scene and succeeded in defusing the tension after taking the two accused into police custody.

Elsewhere in the country, even the indigenous Muslims in the northeastern state of Nagaland are also facing problems related to graveyard. Here, however, the problem is of a different kind. According to the indigenous Muslims of Purana Bazar and Naharbari villages of East Dimapur the oldest graveyard is in a pitiable state. The indigenous Muslims of these two villages had acquired the graveyard at Naharbari village in 1857. This oldest graveyard has however now turned into a garbage dump for the area. The complaint being that waste from households are being continuously dumped here thus creating a highly unhygienic environment, facilitating the breeding of mosquitoes and other insects and spreading pollution. The Muslim Committee of Purana Bazar and Naharbari on their initiative conducted a mass social work to dispose off the waste recently. They also urged the residents of the houses surrounding the graveyard not to throw any garbage there since it would hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslim community. They also explained to the residents that the graveyard is the most holy place for the believers.

Urdu becomes poll issue again. But, will it deliver good to Muslims?

2009-04-04T12:23:00.013+05:30

By Danish Ahmad Khan

With parliamentary elections round the corner, Muslim politicians become active and start raising emotive issues with a vengeance. This time round the language of Urdu is again threatening to become a poll issue at least in a couple of Indian states. Recently, representatives of various Muslim organisations under the banner of Anjuman Taraqqui Urdu (Hindi) staged a demonstration in Kolkata to press for their demand seeking second official language status for Urdu in four subdivisions of Kolkata, Garden Reach, Asansol and Islampur in the state of West Bengal. The four subdivisions where Muslim organisations want Urdu to be declared as an official language have nearly 20 per cent Urdu speaking minority population. Presently, there are about 100 Urdu medium schools in the state. "Once Urdu is declared as an official state language then our children will have the opportunity to pursue their studies from primary to Masters level in one language. The students will be able take any state-level competitive examination in Urdu and this will open a number of employment opportunities for them. We want an Act to be passed in the Assembly declaring Urdu as the official state language. If our demand is not met then its effect will be seen in the elections. There are more than 60 Assembly seats where minorities play significant role during elections," said Mohammad Sulaiman Khurshid, general secretary, Anjuman Taraqqui Urdu (Hindi). Besides declaring Urdu as an official language, Muslim organisations also want question papers of every subject in Madhyamik (matriculation) examinations to be printed in Urdu. Earlier, the state government had promised to recognise Urdu as an official state language in the form of a Chief Secretary Executive order in 1981. However, no initiative has been taken in this regard ever since. The move has come at a time when Left Front government in the state is struggling to keep its minority votes intact. Besides West Bengal, Urdu also remains an emotional issue for Muslims in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Muslims in these two states rue the step-motherly treatment being meted out to Urdu and have threatened to vent out their anger during ensuing polls.

Urdu – Demography & Scope

As it is now in independent India Urdu is widely perceived to be a language that remains exclusive preserve of the Muslim population. However, defying the popular notion Urdu is only spoken in tiny enclaves across a handful states of India. A report by M.A. Siraj published in Deccan Herald (15 September 2007) cites the latest Language Atlas of India published by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner which undertook a special exercise that cross tabulated the Urdu and Muslim population in the country. The report says: “The significant aspect of the outcome of the exercise is the fact that only a little half of Muslims (i.e. 51.5 percent) residing in Uttar Pradesh have recorded Urdu as their mother tongue. In the case of Bihar, this proportion is about 66.8 percent. In contrast, a vastly preponderant majority of Muslims living in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra have registered Urdu as their mother tongue. Other states where proportion of Urdu speakers among Muslims is significant are Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.” The report further adds: “To sum up the position of Urdu vis-à-vis Muslims, it would be sufficient to point out that while there were 101.5 million Muslims in India (1991 Census which excludes Jammu and Kashmir), 42.72 percent recorded Urdu to be their mother tongue. This is to say that less than half of Indian Muslims speak or use Urdu.”

Providing details about the linguistic composition of Muslims in India, the Language Atlas of India points out that at least is three more states – Kerala, Assam and West Bengal – Muslims make up a good chunk of population. In Kerala there are 23 percent Muslims, Assam 28.43 percent and West Bengal has 23.61 percent. However, in contrast Urdu-speaking Muslims are merely 0.19 percent, 0.06 percent and 9.05 percent respectively in these three states. In states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana the proportion of Urdu-speaking Muslims constitute 27 percent, 37.40 percent and 34 percent respectively.

With the available data at hand at least one thing can be said that Urdu remains greatly confined to the Muslims of north India. In south Indian states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala Muslims are least concerned about Urdu and give more preference to their respective regional languages i.e. Tamil and Malayalam. The scope of the development of Urdu and its speakers therefore also remains quite limited.

Urdu and Muslim identity

The association of Urdu with the religious identity of Muslims dates back to the days of struggle for India's independence. With an eye on establishing British rule in India, the East India Company upon setting its foot started exercising executive power on behalf of titular Mughul sovereign and abolished Persian from official use and replaced it with English and native vernaculars through a decree in 1837. Urdu, which already had established its dominating position over local vernaculars, was however accepted and retained as lingua franca in northern India by the East India Company. Urdu was also allowed to remain the language of courts in northern India. The imposition of Urdu was however opposed by the Hindu masses who demanded that the vernacular of northern India Hindi be accorded the official language status. The Muslim elite, to whom Urdu was confined as the lingua franca, vehemently opposed the official status demand for Hindi. This gave birth to Hindi-Urdu controversy which gradually acquired communal overtones over the years.

The two-nation theory propounded by renowned poet Mohammad Iqbal brought Urdu to the centrestage of Muslim politics. The then Muslim League leadership politicized Urdu and exploited it to the hilt. Prominent Muslim League leader and founder of Islamic Republic of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who could not even write his own name in Urdu, included it in his famous fourteen points and cynically used it as a tool to forge a Muslim identity. Jinnah exploited Urdu to widen the gap of cultural divide between Hindus and Muslims though he could not speak a word of Urdu. The Muslim League at the height of its partition demand repudiated the slogan 'Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan' with 'Urdu-Muslim-Pakistan'.

Later after partition and India’s independence, the founder of the Aligarh movement Sir Syed Ahmad Khan called for the adoption of Urdu as the language of Indian Muslims. The move also won considerable support from Muslim religious activists of the Deobandi and Wahabbi schools. Organisations like the Urdu Defence Association and Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu were formed to advocate the cause of Urdu. Muslim religious leaders such as Maulana Mohammad Ali, Maulana Shaukat Ali and Maulana Maududi emphasised the knowledge of Urdu as essential for ordinary and religious Muslims. Even Muslim political and social organisations like the All India Muslim League and the Jamaat-e-Islami projected Urdu as essential for the political and cultural survival of Muslim society in India. Shibli Nomani made extensive efforts resulting in the adoption of Urdu as the official language of the Hyderabad State and as the medium of instruction in the Osmania University. Nomani's campaign drew widespread criticism for making the use of Urdu as a political issue that further deepened the divide between Muslims and Hindus. Notwithstanding, Urdu has today become an integral part of political identity and cultural separatism for Muslims in northern and western India.

Role of Urdu

The language of Urdu took birth in India with the advent of Mughal conquerors. Urdu emerged as a synthesis of Khari Boli (Hindi), Braj Bhasha Rajasthani and Punjabi with some Persian and Arabic vocabulary. Being a socio-administrative requirement of Mughal conquerors, the Urdu language became lingua franca in course of time primarily for interaction between the Mughal soldiers and native dwellers. However, the gradual Persianisation and Arabisation of the Urdu language by Mughal conquerors to extend their hegemony over India started playing spoilsport and became the root cause of dividing the Indian society on purely religious lines. Natives viewed the move with suspicion and saw it an attempt to establish the cultural and linguistic hegemony in the region by the Mughal rulers. Native languages had Sanskrit origin and Nagari script, but the imposition of Urdu with Perso-Arabic script was vigorously opposed by the native dwellers. It can be said that the birth of Urdu created the first social division of the Indian society.

From the aspect of language and literature, Urdu is sweet in its essence. It is owing to the Urdu language that a vibrant slogan of 'Inquilab Zindabad' was coined during freedom struggle, and which played a crucial role in freeing India from British rule. However, on the other hand things have been gloomy insofar as social and political role of the Urdu language is concerned. The language of Urdu which was flagrantly used as a political tool by Muslim politicians to create a social and religious divide between Muslims and Hindus and ultimately played a nefarious role in the partition of India, however could not keep Muslims themselves together. After India's partition on two language-two nation theory, the Urdu-speaking Mohajirs in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan have been rendered to live under the subjugation of Punjabi-majority rule as second class citizens forever. Once during a visit to India, prominent Mohajir leader and MQM chief Altaf Hussain had to acknowledge and declare that the partition of India was the greatest blunder in human history. The situation with Urdu-speaking Bihari Muslims in Bangladesh is equally pitiable. Around 2.5 lakh Urdu-speaking Muslims have been suffering a worse fate and forced to live in 160 refugee camps under the supervision of the International Committee of Red Cross for over three decades. Only recently these Bihari Muslims accepted Bangladeshi citizenship and were registered as voters in 2008.

To date, the Urdu-speaking population in these three countries – India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – continues to face a crisis of identity. Urdu-speaking Muslims in northern and western India are still struggling for their identity as a majority of Hindus still refuse to forgive them for demanding the partition of India. In Pakistan, the Urdu-speaking Mohajirs continue to be nostalgic about their land of origin and therefore the local communities in the country are unwilling to forgive them for this. Similarly, for Bihari Muslims the existence is tough as Bangladeshis are not ready to forgive them for having opposed the struggle for liberation from West Pakistan. The language of Urdu also played a divisive role here since Muslims in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) refused to accept the hegemony of West Pakistan and therefore the domination of Urdu language. This ultimately resulted in the partition of Pakistan itself on two language-two nation formula and a new nation of Bangladesh took birth.

What have Muslims gained from Urdu?

The biggest question one is forced to ask is that has the language of Urdu benefitted Muslims in any way at least in terms of employment opportunities with handsome earnings. For this big question the answer too is simply a big NO. The bitter truth is that privileged Muslims prefer to send their children to study in convents or missionary schools instead of Urdu-medium schools. And, why not? They already know the pitiable conditions that Urdu-medium schools are usually found in. Forget this. Even the champions that advocate the cause of Urdu and are occupying top positions in Urdu in various universities and government offices also prefer to send their children to study in English-medium schools.

Only the wards of Muslims below the poverty line are left with little choice and are forced to go to Urdu-medium schools. Even those Muslims who are slightly better off prefer to send their children to Hindi-medium schools instead of Urdu-medium schools. For them education in Hindi-medium schools mean better employment opportunities. One cannot overlook the fact that the bane of Urdu-medium schools is non-availability of teachers, particularly in Mathematics, English and Science subjects. Besides, Urdu-medium textbooks are not generally available in the market and has been a problem for ages. The problem is such grave that when the English and Hindi books of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) are sent to the market, the translation of Urdu books begins and by the time the translation ends, either the session is over or the text is changed. In comparison to other schools, Urdu-medium schools neither promote nor inculcate extra-curricular activity to motivate students. I have rarely found a Parent-Teacher Association body existing in Urdu schools. As a corollary the rapport between the principals, parents, teachers and students is abysmally low. Also, in most of the Urdu-medium schools the principals and teachers are appointed hailing from an English or Hindi background thus resulting in a lacuna of understanding as also a language bias in day-to-day activities of the schools. A visit to Urdu-medium schools in India is a tell tale in itself. The ghettoized Urdu-medium schools have extremely poor infrastructure and environment – sparsely-lit dilapidated classrooms, poor sanitation facilities, broken and decrepit furniture, unhygienic drinking water or no water. The absence or co-curricular activities, lack of teachers, unconcerned parents and uninterested students are other remarkable features of Urdu-medium schools in India.

In terms of higher education, even if some concerned Muslims want to adopt Urdu medium for their studies one seldom finds Engineering, Medicine and Information Technology books in Urdu. This strictly limits the scope of the language itself and also those of its practitioners. Undoubtedly, the language of Urdu is known for its richness, sweetness and immense literary value. It has been kept alive by Hindi cinema, few Urdu radio and TV channels, the madrassas, the occasional recitation of couplets from Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz in Parliament, and of course, the routine Mehfil-e-Shayari on the occasions of Independence Day and Republic Day. But it’s saddening that the language of Urdu doesn’t open up many avenues on the professional front.

Saving Urdu from politicians and Muslim radicals

The above facts make it obvious that the language of Urdu continues to be used as a political tool both in the hands of politicians and Muslim radicals. As part of planned conspiracy the Indian National Congress introduced Urdu as a medium of study utilizing Articles 14, 19 (1) (g), 24, 29 (2), 30 (1), 38, 39 (F), 41 and 61 of the Indian Constitution with an eye on Muslim votes. The nefarious move over the years pushed Muslims on the fringes and into the dark ages. Keeping in view the votebank politics, the state governments in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi accorded Urdu the second official language status. The demand for making Urdu the second language status in four subdivisions of West Bengal is part of the gameplan of selfish, narrow-minded Muslim politicians to keep the community backward and always struggling for an honorable existence. Only a handful of Urdu knowing Muslims could succeed in getting low-paid government jobs. The motivation has not been such that even the people in these states have never been able to get emotionally attached to Urdu. The state governments occasionally sanction millions of rupees in the name of Urdu and uplift of minorities to Urdu promotion institutes like the Urdu Academies, Anjuman Taraqqui-e-Urdu, the National Council for Promotion of Urdu and State Minority Commissions. However, the move has proved futile and these institutions remain white elephants and left into the hands of corrupt administrators. The fate of Urdu and the minorities thus remains to be imagined. The Muslim clergy has also done a great disservice to Muslims by linking Urdu with Islam. Time and again the Muslim clergy has sought to equate the alleged declining status of Urdu as threat to the Islamic identity of Indian Muslims thus communalizing the whole issue.

The height of the politicization of Urdu and its linkage with the Muslims is such that the Indian National Congress President Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter in Urdu and sent it to as many as 15,000 Muslims in an attempt to reach out to the Muslim electorate during 2007 assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh making a strong plea to extend support “in her fight against forces of casteism and communalism”. Not only this, even arch enemy of the Muslim world the State of Israel assessing the importance of Indian Muslims launched its official website in Urdu in July 2008. While launching the Urdu website Israel’s Ambassador to India Mark Sofer said, "India is known for its moderate and forward-looking religion of beauty that is Islam. There is no reason why we should not address a large section of a strong community."

The so-called Muslim leadership doesn’t have any pragmatic and serious agenda for the betterment of the community. When elections are due to take place these so-called leaders resurface just like frogs out of the wells during rainy seasons. For these self-serving leaders instead of economic, social and educational uplift of Muslims, the important electoral issues are Urdu, Osama bin Laden and Babri Masjid. I remember during 2005 Bihar assembly polls a Osama bin Laden lookalike Mullah used to do rounds with Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav during election meetings across the state. Later on, this Osama bin Laden lookalike Mullah switched sides with ease and used to accompany Lok Jan Shakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan during election meetings. We can simply assess the state of mind of Muslims and how these leaders and clerics play with their emotions.

The need of the hour is that Muslim masses should be awake from their slumber. The Muslim youth have a special role to play. It is the youth who is made the sacrificial goat – whether it be playing with their careers or turning them into suicide bombs and terrorists. It is the Muslim youth who is left to take the bullets during an encounter with the police, fake or otherwise. The so-called Muslim leaders only play with their emotions and meet their own selfish ends. It will be too late if the innocent Muslim masses continue to remain tools in their hands. The time has also come to take the Muslim clerics head on and put an end to their dangerous and evil designs of dividing the Indian Muslim society.