“Apney quwwat-e-bazoo pur etmaad kur, iltija na kur sayyad say; Kabhi koi qufs toota hay faryaaad say”

(Put your own abilities to work, do not grovel; Has the groveling of the tormented ever opened the gates of any prison ) 

Recently when my US born medical student daughter doing rotational training in a hospital in Mumbai told the head of her department that, I was born in Azamgarh, the said eminent doctor told her that she should not mention this to anyone lest she may get into trouble.  The young son of Dr Javed Akhtar, the top orthopedic surgeon in Azamgarh studying for MBA in Mumbai was falsely charged by police as belonging to the Indian Mujahideen group without any evidence or information.  The national English and Hindi media is routinely referring to Azamgarh as “Atankgarh (terrorist town)”.  When well educated and well to do Azamgarh Muslims travel to another city and to rent a room in a hotel identify themselves as being from Azamgarh, they are denied lodging.  When well educated/professional Azamgarh Muslims try to rent a house in another city they are refused.

The Despair:

If you thought this was happening in a police state, think again, for this is happening in the world’s largest secular democracy of India.  In September 2008 the police, unable to locate the culprits responsible for the string of terrorist bombings across India, decided to target and kill a few Azamgarh Muslim students at the Jamia Milia university, New Delhi, with a fake encounter.  Despite many appeals by many upright national leaders, institutions, many huge rallies of Muslims and other deprived minorities, and even a court of law,  the government of India continues to refuse to conduct even a simple magisterial enquiry into these instances of harassment of the Muslims of Azamgarh.  The mainstream English language print and electronic media is going full-bore in maligning the Muslims of eastern Uttar Pradesh in general and those of Azamgarh in particular as terrorism-prone. 

The fear of being maligned as terrorists and even arrested seeped so deep that many Azamgarh Muslims, when asked to name their hometown, gave names of other cities.  Many a Azamgarh Muslims withdrew their children, who were pursuing higher studies in sciences, management, engineering in major universities in other cities, back to Azamgarh.  The careers of many an enterprising Muslim students from Azamgarh,  is wilting.  The continous presence of special Anti Terrorist Section (ATS) police units in various Muslim localities in Azamgarh district, random police check points and random arrests of Muslim youth imposed a regime of fear on the district.  The city of Azamgarh felt as if it had been marked down as enemy territory – a camp under siege.

But in its entire history, Azamgarh has never been a renegade town.  It is the land of ardent nationalists like Allama Shibli Nomani, Kaifi Azmi, Allama Iqbal Suhail, Prime minister Chandrashekhar, at least two chief ministers of the state, martyr Brigadier Usman, state chief justice Iqbal Ahmed and the eminent scientist Shamim Jairajpuri .   Among the doctors and hospitals in Azamgarh district the majority is that of Muslim doctors; among the engineers in U.P. state government employment, a very sizeable number are Azamgarh Muslims; among professors and accademecis in many universities in north India a very substantial number are Azamgarh Muslims; among the resurgent Muslims in the modern industrial units and Bollywood operations in Mumbai you will find many from Azamgarh.

This oppressive situation in Azamgarh and its adjoining towns has been particularly frustrating for the Muslims of the district because in recent decades they have put most of their resources and energies into improving their educational institutions, into converting their city into a hub of the commercial activity for eastern Uttar Pradesh, and into modernizing their city.  What I saw in a recent visit to Azamgarh after many years was that, this small pastoral town has transformed into a beehive of modern commercial activities.  The newly improved road from the state capitol of Lucknow and new express trains have  made it far easier to reach Azamgarh in a few hours; gone is the day-long and arduous train ride on meter gauge through the Shagunj junction.     

What the Muslims of Azamgarh found most disappointing was that the secular political parties that often proclaimed themselves as the defenders of the Muslims either kept quiet or made only cosmetic noises, as their community was being maligned as soft on terrorism.  The Congress party, the Samajwadi party, the Bahujan Samaj party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal made no real effort to ensure that the government conducts a quick investigation, and then absolves the 2 million strong Muslim community of Azamgarh from the nefarious “Atankgarh”  label.  In fact when the local BSP member of parliament, Akbar Ahmad Dumpy  wore the kafayah (an Arab headgear) to a session of parliament to protest government inaction against the maligning of Azamgarh Muslims, the BSP supreme leader Mayawati admonished him and indicated that she may deny him the BSP ticket in the upcoming election.   

The Way Out:

It was Azamgarh’s own illustrious son Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi who had said:

“Bahut andhera haiy, ek diya jalao;  Is deewar main ek darwza kholo, ek rassta nikaalo.”

After fuming over in anger, desperation and loneliness in the darkness of the siege and the fear, the Muslims of Azamgarh took an action that has not been seen that often in recent times among the Muslims.  The modern educated Muslim intelligentsia (doctors, engineers, lawyers, professors, businessmen) consulted with the Ulema (Islamic scholars) from several well known Islamic colleges (Jamiatul Falah, Jamia Islah, Jamiatul Rashad) .  Together they decided that rather than cower in fear, loneliness and continual desperation, they should find a way out of this misery that enveloped the entire city of Azamgarh.  They decided to use the best democratic institutions of society and state to find a way out of the siege.  Thus was formed the Ulema Council in Azamgarh in October 2008.

The Ulema Council:

Unlike a religious organization that imposes clerics on the community, from the very beginning Ulema Council decided that its charter of action is only just and fair treatment for the entire Azamgarh population – Muslims, Hindus, Dalits alike.  When I recently visited Jamiatul Rashad, the Islamic college in Azamgarh where the Ulema Council was formed, its head, Maulana Ammar Rashdi, son of the late illustrious scholar Maulana Mohibullah Rashdi, convener of  the Ulema Council told me  that the council’s major goals are, to raise Shibli National College into a quality university and a center for academic excellence, to increase Hindu-Muslim-Dalit friendship, to expand the commercial-industrial base in Azamgarh, so that the district can become a major center of education and employment for the people of eastern Uttar Pradesh.  When I asked him if he was in favour of demanding reservation for Muslims, he surprised me by saying that he was for  Muslims acquiring good education right from primary schools so that they have no need for reservation.

With these goals in mind the Ulema Council held two most successful mass rallies, one in New Delhi and the other in Lucknow, each attended by about 100,000 people of diverse religious backgrounds.  For both rallies the Ulema Council reserved complete trains to take people from Azamgarh to New Delhi and Lucknow respectively and paid full fare for the trains, a first in the nation’s history where typically rally participants travel in trains ticketless. The participants in these rallies included as many from the intelligentsia as from the cleric backgrounds.

Indeed the Ulema Council began and still is a grassroots movement of ordinary citizens of all religious backgrounds who have been often manipulated by political parties that claim the mantle of secularism and justice but in real terms after winning elections put those issues on the backfoot. The Ulema Council never really intended to take part in elections and definitely not in the April-May 2009 election.  But the circumstances and compulsions of strategy forced it to contest five parliamentary seats in U.P.  Of the 5 seats the Council is contesting, 2 of its candidates (Amresh Misra and Chandu Lal) are Hindu; the remaining 3 being Muslim.   

The Future:

In a conversation with me when I visited Aamgarh in early April, Dr Javed Akhtar, Azamgarh’s top orthopedic surgeon and the Ulema Council’s parliamentary candidate from Azamgarh said that, the Council’s goal is the U.P. State Assembly election of 2011.  The current electoral effort is merely a rehearsal.  He also told me that soon the Council will merge with other smaller political parties, change its name to one that reflects its ethos of “justice for all” and a non-religious paradigm, for instance, “Insaaf Council”.  He said that his party will become a truly secular group where Muslims will like to have a sizeable presence but where there will be a substantial number of non-Muslims, especially Dalits.  He indicated that the Muslims of UP and Bihar are fed up with those political leaders who do not allow hard working Muslim activists from becoming leaders in the parties that call themselves secular; do not work hard for the pressing demands of the Muslims, namely security, removing educational backwardness and economic deprivation.

Dr Salman Sultan, a professor of Chemistry at the Shibli College, Azamgarh, and a senior Muslim leader in the city described for me the substantial drive of the Azamgarh Muslims in the last twenty years to build quality primary schools, high schools and inter colleges with the community’s  own resources and the resources of Azamgarh Muslims who work in the middle-eastern countries and north America.  In fact he took me to some of those institutions for visit.  In that background Dr Sultan, whose late father was the principal of the Shibli National College, expressed the outrage of the Azamgarh Muslims on being described as soft on terrorism and the labeling of their city by the media as “Atankgarh”.  “How could the Indian nation forget the heritage and contribution of Shibli and Kaifi and put such labels on our city and our community”, Dr Sultan asked me.   

In my visit to Azamgarh I visited several educational institutions and met over two  dozen prominent Muslim doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors who talked with fervor of their dedication to making the Ulema Council a true movement of Muslims and Hindus, that fights for justice and protection from the high-handedness of the police, courts, media, the manipulation of major political parties.  They openly expressed the Muslim community’s frustration with top leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Laloo Yadav, Mayawati who always proclaim their sympathy with Muslim masses but who have held down the growth of Muslims in the political rungs in their parties, and who have done nothing but lip service for the festering problems of the masses. “Look at the total non-implementation of the Sachar Committee”, they told me.

The Election:

Some people seem to question the Ulema Council’s motives because of its participation in the current election.  Sitting far away from eastern UP, reading English language newspapers or internet reports, and thinking of the word “Ulema” they conjure up images of the Ulema Council as being a sectarian and orthodox group dominated by a set of mullas.  But the facts on the ground are very very different.  If you visit the Muslim localities of cities in UP or read Urdu language newspapers published from UP,  you will understand that the Ulema Council represents a true mainstream, grassroots, non-sectarian, people’s movement for justice and fairness and that a majority of Muslim intelligentsia is nurturing this movement with their support. 

The charge of some people that the Ulema Council candidates may divide the Muslim vote is borne out of ignorance of the ground situation.  For instance the Ulema Council’s Amresh Misra is running against SP’s Nafisa Ali in Lucknow.  On my recent visit to Lucknow when I asked the local Muslims if they knew who Nafisa Ali was, most of them said that they had never heard of her.  A few who had heard her name told me that she is a five-star socialite from New Delhi, the wife of a wealthy polo playing Sikh army colonel, who hardly ever visited Muslim localities.  And Amresh Misra, they said is a courageous journalist who protested against the police maligning of Muslim youth in the Batla House/Jamia Nagar fake encounter and the Mumbai terrorist carnage.  They told me that the days of Muslims supporting the five star, super-secular Muslims like Nafisa Ali, Azharauddin and their ilk are over.  Muslims are now supporting anyone, Muslim or Hindu, who is willing to speak for their deprivations and needs.

In the current election the Ulema Council is expected to do well in two constituencies, namely Azamgarh (Dr Javed Akhtar) and the reserved constituency of Lalganj (Chandulal) .  However, despite overwhelming support from Muslims, it is doubtful if these two Ulema Council candidates will win.  As several leaders of this party elaborated for me repeatedly in several cities in UP recently, the primary objective of the Ulema Council is to mobilize the Muslim community in the face of repeated political manipulation by parties that claim to be their friend but do absolutely nothing to help them.  Their objective is to make the Ulema Council, a peoples’ mass movement, somewhat like the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF)  of Assam.

Conclusion:

Whether any of the Ulema Council candidates do well in the election or not, one thing is obvious as you travel through UP, the Ulema Council is an unmistakable grassroots movement of ordinary Muslims and it has given them the confidence to break out of a state of siege and fear, and to emphasize to the politicians that they better pay attention to their real problems of lack of security, educational backwardness and economic deprivation.  That is no small achievement.  And this strategy could be a role model for Muslims elsewhere in the contry.

“Umar bhur ek hi gulti kurtey rahey,
Aur doosroon pur ilzaam daitey rahey.
Dhool thi chehre pur apney,
Aur hum aaina saaf kartey rahey”

Traveling in a train in north India a young Muslim Urdu poet was heard to recite the above thoughtful verse that so poignantly illustrates how the leadership of the Indian Muslims has gone off on a tangent and has gone off-track. They have gotten bogged down in locking horns with their adversaries on minor non-issues instead of challenging the mainstream parties, to give them their due share of infrastructure development in their townships, to protect them from rabid sectarian violence, and to stop denying them the benefits of democracy.

The 15th parliamentary election in sixty years of democratic India is looming on the horizon. Like others, Muslims too have repeatedly participated in these rituals of democracy. Why is it that for Muslims this important exercise in democracy became only a ritual that they repeated in the past 14 elections? Muslims, a solid fourteen percent block of Indians, have not only remained at the bottom of the Indian barrel, they have kept going down? In the same time frame, the Dalits and OBCs who were at the rock bottom in 1947, have utilized the same democratic exercises to make impressive gains up the national ladder.

To understand the puzzle note that for the coming election each major ethnic community has readied itself by highlighting their major issues for the political parties. The only exception is the Muslim community. The leaders of the Muslims in mainstream parties remain unfocussed and fragmented. Many of them with promises of election tickets remain beholden to the agendas of others and shelve discussion of their community’s issues with the top leadership of their parties.

Instead of bringing up the pressing issues of Muslim masses to the party leadership, they become yes-men of the party bosses and look for largesse for their own kith and kin.

Then there are Muslim leaders who have formed over half a dozen seasonal Muslim parties in the last six months alone. The Ulema Council, the Parcham Party, the Muslim Mahaz, the Peace Party, that sprung up in recent months, are on a narrow Muslim track with no serious effort to make common cause with like minded deprived non-Muslim communities. Other Muslim parties like Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) and the Milli Council, though a couple of years old, have also not made much headway in forming alliances with mainstream secular parties.

And then there are the decades old Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (Hyderabad) and Indian Union Muslim League (Kerala/Tamil Nadu), that split because the top leadership refused to share power with other dedicated activists. And there is the seventy year old Jamiat ul Ulema Hind, that though is not a political party, but its top leaders, the Madani uncles and brothers, first fought publicly to control Jamiat and now are contesting election from a variety of parties, backing the agendas and leaders of the respective parties whose candidates they are, often against each other. The agenda and issues of the Muslims has gone out of the window.

The United Muslim Front (UMF) of Assam that gave so much promise to get justice for the large but impoverished Muslim community of Assam a couple of decades ago got co-opted by the Congress party, which gave some government positions to UMF leaders like Golam Usmani, and then they stopped lobbying for the Assamese Muslims. Similarly the Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (PMM) of Ali Anwar, who tried to get social uplift for the long impoverished Dalit Muslims of Bihar got co-opted by Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal, by giving the PMM leaders some largesse of positions of power, after which the PMM’s fervor for social uplift cooled substantially.

Also if you look at the leadership of these “Muslim” parties you find that they have low credibility since they are dominated by clerics and bereft of any of the Muslim intelligentsia who could broad base them. Why is the Muslim intelligentsia so indifferent to the pressing issues of the Muslim masses? Why are the Muslim clerics so indifferent to the Muslim intelligentsia? Why can they not cooperate a bit and in the process help the Qaum? Too many questions but too few answers.

With the Sachar Committee report released about two years ago Muslims had assumed that most Muslim leaders in mainstream parties and the Muslim organizations will make sure that the implementation of this committee’s findings is an integral part of the election platform of all mainstream parties. But that is not what we find on the eve of the election. This despite the fact that there are 90 parliamentary constituencies where Muslim population is about 20 percent, where they can pretty much make the political parties agree to address the basic issues of the community.

Instead the parties that claim to be the friends of Muslims are playing games with them. In Uttar Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati that only a few months ago opposed the US-India Nuclear Accord as being against Muslims, has given tickets to only 14 Muslims out of a total of 80 parliamentary constituencies in the state, while it assigned 20 seats to Brahmins, whom it claims to oppose. After winning the election for UP Assembly a year ago with solid Muslim support, BSP appointed only one Muslim as a cabinet minister. And that too is the minor portfolio of Environment. Also after becoming Chief Minister, Mayawati stopped the construction of the Mohammad Ali Jauhar Minority University in Rampur, that would have been of much help in reducing severe educational backwardness among the Muslims of UP.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) of Mulayam Singh Yadav that claimed to be the solid friend of Muslims, has co-opted Kalyan Singh, who as the BJP Chief Minister presided over the demolition of Babri mosque in 1992, into SP’s top leadership. As to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), when Muslims asked why no Muslim was in the top leadership of the party, its chief Laloo Yadav said that, he himself was the leader of the Muslims of Bihar.

As to the Congress party, with the election campaign in full swing, the party has not included any of its top Muslim leaders in the top tier of its campaigners. In fact in the last five years of its rule in New Delhi, Congress party did not give an opportunity to any of its Muslim leaders to rise and be in the national leadership echelons. And of course Congress has played deceptive games with Muslims when they asked for any real uplift opportunities.

So which Muslim leaders or groups are lobbying with the mainstream parties that they pledge to implement the recommendations of the Sachar Committee on the backwardness of Muslims, and that they restrain police high-handedness against the Muslim youth, the two top ‘make or break’ issues of India’s Muslims? I am afraid your guess is as good as mine.

Photo: Gwalior Tomb

The political, security and social situation in the country has been turbulent in the last one year, to say the least. Several instances of grievous terrorism have caused much tension between Muslims and Hindus. The latest being the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba sponsored attack on civilians in Mumbai in November 2008. Fortunately it did not result in larger Hindu-Muslim conflagration in Mumbai. But the harsh contrived police encounter against Muslim youth in Jamia Nagar and the further harassment of peaceful Muslims in Azamgarh has sent a wave of anger and complaint in the Muslim community throughout North India. Of course the very bad situation of the victims of the 2002 genocide in Gujarat remains unchanged and is causing much consternation in the Muslim community.

Thus despite the passage of time Security remains the top concern of Muslims in almost every city in India. In almost every major city in India Muslims do not have the confidence that police will treat them with fairness. In most major cities Muslim organizations have organized seminars where they have categorically condemned terrorism and have issued fatwas (religious edicts) against it and have prohibited Muslims from even looking in that direction as a means to resolve their grievous complaints of injustice.
The other major issue that is causing restlessness in the community is the government’s and other parties’ failure to take any initiative in implementing the Sachar Committee findings to uplift the extraordinary backwardness of the Muslim community. The report was released over 2 years ago but in these two years other than some perfunctory low level fixes by way of the HRD ministry’s Action Taken Report, no steps have been taken to bring the findings of this report to fruition. The government did not even bring the report for discussion in the parliament or form a Parliamentary Committee to hold hearings and make recommendations on it.
What is disappointing is that instead of looking at the above grievous issues of the Muslim community, some political parties tried to convert the US-India Nuclear Accord as an issue of the Muslim community. That was a very self-serving and misleading trick that some parties, that claim to be secular, played on the Muslims. It had the potential of telling Hindus that instead of having the interest of India at their heart they look at the interests of other Muslim countries as of significance. Fortunately a lot of sensible Muslim leaders opposed that political trickstry and emphasized that the nuclear accord being good for India, it is also good for Indian Muslims.

In many elections in the past some political parties have tried to make vote banks of the Muslims, a large number of whom are illiterate, by making pronouncements that invoke the emotions of Muslims, eg making Urdu the second language, closing schools for half day on Fridays for Juma congregational prayers, visiting the tombs of famous Muslim saints, lavish public praises for some Muslim religious leaders etc. After half a century of such tricks the average Muslims are tired of them.
Today Muslims are not voting en-bloc for any party. Instead in each constituency they are looking at the track record of the parties and candidates, distinguishing their rhetoric and ploys from their actions that impacted the community.
In the approaching elections Muslims are asking the various political parties to give ironclad assurances that they will provide adequate security to the community from organized violence and from police high-handedness; and that they will implement programs to remove the inordinate backwardness of the community in the areas of education and socioecomics, such as implementing the Sachar Committee report.

In most areas the bases on which Indian Muslims decide to vote for a party or candidate are the same as those of other Indians. For instance the issues of Muslim Dalits are the same as those of Hindu and Christian Dalits; the issues of Muslim OBCs are the same as those of Hindu and Christian OBCs. In low income neighborhoods in various cities, the issues of Poor Muslims are the same as those of poor Hindus and Christians, which is to improve the infrastructure of those localities and provide growth opportunities.
Yet with Muslims often being the target of police as suspect for acts of terrorism, seeking safeguards from police harassment and brutality is a distinct issue of the Muslim community. Similarly atrocious lack of schools in Muslim majority areas in all cities, this is a specific issue of the Muslim community.
India’s Muslims are not looking for parties to promise handouts or preferred treatment for them. Instead they are looking for fair and equitable treatment, same as others Having been disappointed with Congress and BJP the two major national parties, Muslim voters are increasingly drawn to the smaller regional parties namely Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj party, Rashtri Janata Dal, Communist Party of India, DMK/ AIDMK etal.

More than anything Muslims are keen on supporting political parties that genuinely promote a secular democratic structure for the nation where their distinct lifestyles and heritage will be preserved as they integrate more in the nation’s mainstream.

Photo: Muslim Man, Ahmedabad

The Muslim identity of India is a thoroughly Indian identity, very different from the Islamic identity of other Muslim countries. This unique Indo-Islamic identity has evolved over centuries of intermingling of traditions, culture, religion and social contacts. The influence that practices of other religions had on the Islamic tradition, and vice-versa also led to the evolution of unique socio-religious traditions of the Muslims in India. 

Indian Muslims draw their traditions from Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Afghans, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Abyssinians, and most of all from the traditions of the various regions of India. Indeed the Muslims of India, who are descendents of the original inhabitants of India for millennia, are as diverse as India itself.

By the 14th century when Turk kings ruled in the north, India had become a major center of Islamic learning. What Leonardo da Vinci represents to European renaissance, Amir Khusrou represents to Indian renaissance. In that period the major trend amongst the Muslims in India was to learn the philosophy, culture and tradition of India and to introduce the philosophy and culture of the Muslim world into India. Thus Khusrou was the pioneer in creating a new Indo-Islamic culture and tradition, and also a new language called Hindvi, the ancestor of today’s Hindi and Urdu.

Another major development in the Indo-Islamic ethos was in the area of architecture and technology. Ain-e-Akbari, the 16th century masterpiece gives ample evidence of Muslims’ having produced a variety of mechanical devices e.g. wagon mills, multi-barreled guns, screw cannons, and a variety of ingenuous machinery. Countless magnificent monuments and buildings all across India speak eloquently of the Muslims’ contribution to India’s distinct architecture. Muslims made major initiatives in the production of quality products like cosmetics, textiles, zari-work, metallurgy, glass and ceramics. Tipu Sultan is known to have developed rockets for use in his army against the expanding British campaign in India.

The development of irrigation, hydraulics and the construction of canals flourished as never before during the long Mogul reign. The harnessing of the principles of hydraulics and the use of devices such as deep wells, Persian wheel and artificial lakes, resulted in the development of the unique Mogul gardens. Large scale development of orchards and agricultural production was another enterprise of the Muslims.

Socially and culturally the greatest Muslim impact of the medieval era on India was through the Sufi movement which led to the growth of the Bhakti movement. The downfall of the Mogul empire after the first war of independence in 1857, saw Muslims of India go through a very traumatic period in which Muslims were subjected to much oppression by the new British rulers.

In the early decades of the 20th century growth of revolutionary and nationalistic literature occurred in the Muslim community. Slogans like “Inquilab Zindabad”, and songs like “Saaray jahan say acchha Hindostan hamaara”, and Allama Iqbal’s enthusiastic advocacy of the Indian nationalism are nuggets of India’s long freedom struggle whose origin lies in the Muslim community.

The partition of India in 1947 was a traumatic event for the Muslims of India, a majority of whom had taken active part in India’s freedom struggle under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, and did not want the partition. After 1947 with guidance from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Indian Muslims again started dedicating themselves to the building of the new nation, and to become active in various fields. After decades of struggling with this situation, Muslims are now well adjusted to the changed milieu of India.

Another important contribution of Muslims to the growth of the Indian culture is music and movies. Some of India’s top musicians of the 20th century, continuing on after 1947 are Muslims who contributed much to the substantial growth of genuine Hindustani vocal music, e.g. Khayal, Taraana, Dhrupad, Thumri, Qawwali, Ghazal, and musical instruments like Sitar, Sarod and Shehnai.

As the movie industry developed in India, Muslims took a leading role as actors/actresses, directors, producers, music-directors etc, putting Bollywood on the world stage of cinema.

In the last few decades India’s Muslims are again trying to re-invent the Aligarh Movement of the late 1800s and dedicate themselves to acquiring education. Although much remains to be done in this area, as the 21st century dawned, one could see the Muslim community in various parts of India, north, south, east, west, make a sincere effort to start educational institutions.

The recent emergence of APJ Abul Kalam, India’s top missile scientist; Azam Premji, a pioneer in the rapidly growing Information Technology industry; the internationally renowned painter MF Hussain; Sania Mirza the world class tennis player; many high achiever Muslims in Bollywood, as the as top leaders in their fields in India, is a testimony that Muslims in India are bouncing back to find their niche in the mainstream of the world class powerhouse, that India is fast becoming.

The writer is the past President of the Association of Indian Muslims of America, Washington DC.

Photo: Muslim Prayer Caps

I found Bobby to be a most intelligent, articulate, ebullient and dedicated young man. His oozing vitality and dynamism stunned me. I thought to myself, how could an Indian-American, so young and the child of an average Indian-American immigrant family, with neither wealth nor political connections, aspire to be the governor of a state in US at such a young age?

The answer to my pique came soon as Bobby went around the room shaking hands and talking in a most confident manner. In the election in the fall of 2003 for Governor of Louisiana, Bobby who was the nominee of the Republican party lost very narrowly due to awful negative campaign of his Democratic party opponent. But that election made Bobby a household name in Louisiana that is one of the most conservative and racially divided states in US. Such is his ability to network with people of all colors and all opinions.

In 2004 Bobby ran for the Congress and triumphed easily. Two years ago in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina Bobby ran again for Governor of Louisiana and won with 70% plurality. In the short span of a year and half Bobby Jindal has become a rising star at the national level in the Republican Party. Six months ago Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain shortlisted Bobby among three people for the VP slot.

Today It makes me very proud to see a 37 year old fellow Indian-American, literally one of us, become such a shining star in the higher circles in US. Granted, the Republican Party is not very popular in US these days due to the recent harmful influence of the right wing of the party that forced a narrow and one-sided agenda on the nation. For the welfare of US the Republican Party must correct its course and get back on track as the party of Abraham Lincoln that abolished slavery in US and fought a civil war to end the oppression of African-Americans in US.

The leader to bring back the Republican Party to its original moorings of fairness, free enterprise and efficient government is Gov Bobby Jindal. America became a great nation not by pursuing the regressive socialist policies favored in Europe and Asia, but by following the unique free enterprise policies that encourage initiative in every individual and rewards them. We all who come from South Asia know very well what following socialist policies means for a nation.

People who put neocon colors like that of Rush Limbaugh on Bobby Jindal do great injustice to him. We should look at Bobby Jindal with an open mind, and give him credit as a most enterprising hope to revive America and bring fairness in the public arena, after the terrible current economic slump. Neither Republican neither is a bad word nor is Democrat a bad word. It is time that we Indian-Americans who have adopted US as our homeland rise above such labels, and help enterprising young men like our own Bobby Jindal to help resolve the problems US is facing and restore enterprise, prosperity and progress to the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Photo: Bobby Jindal

However it pains Muslims to find that most Muslims continue to be marginalized and stereotyped in India and often suspect in their nationalism, not to mention their utter social, economic and educational backwardness, far in excess of the national average. An overwhelming majority of today’s Muslims are of the pro-independence generation. When someone doubts their nationalism or alleges that they may be sympathizers of Pakistan, just because they are Muslims, it causes them a lot of anguish.

In sixty years in post independence India, Muslims have continued to hear questions like, “Now that they have Pakistan, what do the Muslims want?” And then came the slogan, “If you have to live in India you have to worship Lord Rama.” Even some otherwise enlightened Hindus are heard saying that “There is a Muslim problem that will not go away.” It pains Muslims that rather than view them as descendants of great patriotic Indians of the past, such as Emperor Akbar, King Tipu Sultan, and Sufi saints like Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer, Nizamuddin Aulia of Delhi, freedom fighters like Maulana Azad and Ghaffar Khan, and the creator of ballistic missiles APJ Abdul Kalam, et al, today a significant number of Hindus prefer to link the entire 140 million strong Muslim community with the handful of tyrants of the medieval past like Ghouri, Ghaznavi, Nadir Shah etc, and the isolated instances of their suppression of Hindus.

It bothers Muslims that the close proximity of mosques and temples in countless cities of India is not interpreted as a sign of the coexistence of Muslims and Hindus over the centuries, but as that of the forcible conversion of temples into mosques by Muslim kings of the past. As the Urdu poet late BD Pandey, a former governor of Uttar Pradesh said:

“ Hazaaron saal ki yeh daastan. Aur unko yaad haiy sirf itna; Kay Alamgir (Aurangzeb) zaalim tha, hindukush tha, sitamgur tha.”

( Hindus and Muslims coexisting is a tale of a thousand years. And yet all they remember is that Alamgir (Auragzeb) was a suppressor of Hindus and a tyrant.)

Today after sixty years in independent India, despite their utter powerlessness and impoverishment, despite no government action against the culprits who massacred thousands of Muslims in Gujarat (2002), Mumbai (1993) and other cities in countless riots and who demolished many Muslim mosques and shrines, the Muslim Indians are neither willing to accept the epithet of Mohammadya Hindu, nor ready to give up their authentic home grown Indo-Islamic identity as the price for equal say in the affairs of their nation.

As erstwhile freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak said, “Freedom and equal rights is our birthright.” They also have no special love for Pakistan which is just another country for them. Today’s Indian Muslims want to be proactive in nation building and place great trust, not in the government but in the seventyfive percent secular Hindus who genuinely want to coexist in peace and dignity with them, remove their alienation from the mainstream of India and make them an active partner in the world class Indian nation of tomorrow.

The emergence of true grit secular leaders like VP Singh, Jyoti Basu, Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Arjun Singh etal on the national scene after decades of vote bank politics and the politics of political expediency gives them hope for the future. Muslims fully expect the silent majority of secular Hindus to remain silent no more but speak up and demand that the power structure take action to redress the genuine plight and deprivation of the Muslim community.

Photo: Muslim Pot Maker, Gujarat

Yes, in many ways the Muslim and Christian minorities have suffered unequal treatment at the hands of the state in India. Sikhs suffered only in one phase for a few years mostly in reaction to their own militancy. After that the state moved to ensure that Sikhs do not get away from the Hindu fold.  As to Jains and Buddhists, with many commonalities with the Hindu ethos, Indians at large consider them offshoots of Hinduism, rather than as religious minorities. That leaves only two minority communities, Muslims and Christians. The unequal treatment of Christians is of recent origin and is limited to a handful of states. Due to their much better socioeconomic and educational status and the fear of reaction from Western countries (that have heavy Christian populations), the Indian state has been careful in handling Christians.

That leaves Muslims as the only religious minority that has suffered unequal treatment since 1947.

Why are Muslims the victims?

1. The creation of Pakistan as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims in 1947 and then the aggressive/militant actions of Pakistan against India. In the last 25 years the random terrorist attacks on civilians in India. All this has kept the pot boiling against Indian Muslims and the reaction against Muslims continuing. In the decade preceding 1947 the Muslim League campaign of th “Two Nation” ideology did much to damage Hindu-Muslim relations for a long time to come among the Hindus.

2. Total silence from 53 Muslim countries (other than Pakistan) to say even one word against any of the worst oppression and harassment of masses of Muslims and their institutions in 60 years. Many of the energy rich Muslim countries have continued to supply oil/gas at preferential terms to India and have continued to give lucrative contracts to Indian companies. Thus Indian Hindus are quite sure that Indian Muslims have no international sympathizers

3. The resurgence of religion based politics initiated by BJP in the early 1980s; other groups picked up on it and a sort of competition began among them to become more aggressive against Muslims.

4. The Congress party’s Vote Bank politics directed at Muslims where the party made all sorts of cosmetic gestures just before every national election without giving any real help to improve the community’s security or socioeconomic situation. In the last decade other regional parties and even Communists have picked up this strategy and are benefitting from it.

5. The international Islamophobic environment following 9/11/2001 and the irrational terrorist acts of a handful of Muslims. This has given an opportunity to the anti-Muslim elements in the Indian Government to develop discriminatory policies against Muslims.

6. The continued poor socioeconomic and educational status of the Muslim communities that prevents integration at equal level of Muslims with others in the country at large.

The Western Secular Countries

In the US the state has tried to be inclusive towards Muslims and Hindus; beginning the sessions of Congress with prayers of religions other than Christianity. Allowing religious symbols of religions other than Christianity, adequate public display in the ‘holiday season’ in November/December each year; Calling the religious observances as ‘holidays’. The power structure in US constantly tries not to let religion seep into the political or state apparatus and there are plenty of watchdogs to ensure that.

We must remember that the people of India continue to be seriously attached to religion and the role of God in their daily lives per se, as opposed to the Western countries where the majority of people today have very little attachment to religion or the role of God in their daily lives. Religion plays a very important role in the daily lives of even the well to do intelligentsia and others in India. That is our national ethos. In contrast most people in the West have given up attachment to religion at least since World War II. The basic ethos of the Western society has changed over to material pursuits, science & technology, belief in their own prowess, as opposed to the role of God in their lives. Natural calamities in the West are hardly ever described as ‘Acts of God’. Today the faith of the common people in God or prayer is at very low level. Irreligiosity is common place.

The same is true about most countries in Europe. The state after all reflects the public opinion at large and those who operate the organs and agencies of the state come from the common populace. Thus with ireeligiosity common place it is easier to separate the state from the church in real practice in the Western countries. On the contrary in India most people who operate the state being Hindus, reflecting the 85% majority population in the country, bring in their ethos of putting their religion in the state apparatus.

The picture of the secular and religiously tolerant Western countries though has developed some cracks since the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks in US of 2001 and the terrorist attacks in London and Madrid. In their pursuit to make their countries safe from terrorist attacks many centers of power including the state apparatus in the Western countries are falling prey to the Islamophobic attitudes of the small number of zealots. Thus Muslims are being painted in the media in the Western countries as sympathetic to reactionary and violent elements. Yet in symbolic and public policy matters the state apparatus in Western countries does allow Muslims a role. And there is optimism for the improvement of the civic situation of Muslims in the West in the years to come.

Is India Secular?

In India 60 years of experience shows that attitudes against equal space for all religions has hardened in an India which started out in 1947 with a “tryst with destiny” to build a secular state as Jawaharlal Nehru so eloquently promised. After 60 years of numerous failures to give equal space to the Muslim and Christian minorities in the state apparatus, and the policies of successive governments to look the other way as these failures become standard operating procedure, one can only say that while the Indian state believes in being secular and holds on to that theoretical premise, it does not make much effort to prevent its failure and constantly looks the other way when transgressions occur. Of the three organs of the state, executive, legislative, judiciary and the media – the fourth, while the record of the first two, namely executive and legislative is pretty sullied with repeated transgressions of secularism, the record of the other two in upholding secularism, namely the judiciary and the media, is quite bright. Also in public pronouncements most political and civic parties and the power structure do constantly refer to the importance of secularism as a national creed.

Thus while I may not conclude that India is not a secular state, I may prefer to say that I have doubts about the extent to which the Indian state tries to be secular.

The writer, a community activist in Washington DC, can be reached on kaleemkawaja@hotmail.com.

Photo: Laxmi Street, Delhi

Criteria for Success

The basic expectation from a VC at AMU is that he solve the problems of the students and teachers, improve the quality of education, quality of research, quality of relationship between teachers and students, campus discipline, and ensure that most of the grants and funds allocated to AMU by the Government and Foundations

are actually expended within the stipulated time period and for the intended purpose. Today AMU has a vast and sprawling campus, a variety of professional colleges, teaching faculties and departments, with about 26,000 students living in hostels at the campus. Overcrowding in hostels and classrooms and competition among students and teachers for the scarce resources is a gnawing reality. A variety of factors prevent AMU from achieving pursuit of academic excellence and be ranked among the nation’s top universities. Thus while expansion of AMU academic programs is a laudable goal, upgrading the existing infrastructure and learning systems in order to improve the functioning of AMU is a primary need of the community that AMU serves.

The string of failures

All of the last four Vice chancellors, Mr Naseem Ahmad IAS, Mr Hamid Ansari IFS, Mr Mahmoodur Rahman IAS, Prof MN Farooqi, faced much campus violence, personal threats to their physical well-being, repeated student strikes, cancellation/postponement of examinations, major disturbances in the residential hostels, non-cooperation from the teachers and arson/murders at the campus.
Why did the handpicked, distinguished Prof MN Farooqi, former Chairman of the Electronics Department at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, despite his innovations, face unending disturbances, serious problems in the enrollment to the university’s professional colleges, strikes, turmoil at the campus that forced him to finally resign well before the end of his term?

Why did the politically savvy and tough guy IAS officer Mahmoodur Rahman face so much campus violence, threats from the students and the campus shopkeeper community, and become an unacceptable official at AMU, despite his hard work and penchant for discipline and scores of new initiatives?

The sophisticated and suave diplomat, IFS officer Hamid Ansari had to leave after serving only 2 years upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. That saved him from further troubles at the campus. In the short period of his 2 year tenure he faced violence and police raids against the then well entrenched SIMI elements at the University campus which threatened the shutdown of the university.

Why did the politically efficient and very personable IAS officer Naseem Ahmad, who even experimented with writing Urdu poetry to help bond with the AMU ethos, face not only murder of students at the campus but also threats on his life, and finally had to leave in a hurry?

The above four VCs were capable and experienced managers who brought a diversity of strengths and qualities to manage AMU. Some of them were very experienced government administrators and others were very experienced academic managers. Yet, all of them were unable to meet the basic expectation from them of trouble free operation of the university, orderly semesters, admissions, classes, examinations and some growth and improvement.
Why the failures?

Some of the factors that bedeviled all of these otherwise capable VCs are:

a. The expectation of the North Indian Muslim community and the Central and UP governments is that the Aligarh Muslim University VC be an ex-officio leader of the Indian Muslim community, a sort of central minister for the Muslim community’s higher education. That in addition to managing AMU he should manage the expectations and issues in the area of higher education of the 150 million strong Muslim community. The VC is given a signal that his next assignment after AMU may be a Central Cabinet Minister or Ambassador to a Muslim country or Governor of a state. Everyone is reminded of Dr Zakir Hussain Khan who after AMU ascended to the offices of governor of Bihar, Vice-President and President of India.
b. Thus after about a year as VC at AMU, the gentlemen start spending considerable time, effort and strategy with the top politicians and political parties in New Delhi and in international political circles. The Indian government itself propels the AMU VC in that slot. Thus the administration of the sprawling AMU campus, discipline at the campus and in the departments, the struggles of the students and teachers etc get much smaller time and attention from the VC. Most AMU VCs feel that they are not like the VCs of other big universities, because they are expected to carry the heavy burden of leadership of the Muslim community, which they think is their unofficial assignment. That results in the compounding of AMU’s core problems and periodic blowups.

c. Being short of time due to his pre-occupation with external functions the VC typically does not go beyond the department chairmen in the management of the various teaching departments. That transforms the department chairmen into sort of czars of the affairs of teachers, students, research scholars and research programs in their departments. Many a lecturers, readers, research scholars and research programs sometimes suffer from the whims of the chairmen and the VC remains blissfully disconnected from it. The department chairmen and senior professors start to control the hiring of new teachers to candidates from their ethnic sub-communities or extended clans leading to significant in-breeding. The net result is frequent frustration among the students and junior teachers and stagnation of the quality of academic output and pursuit of excellence.

d. The students, many of whom have high expectations of a bright new beginning in their lives, most of whom have just left their homes for the first time and who are trying to survive in the badly overcrowded AMU hostels, find that there is no official at AMU whom they can approach to get their many problems looked at. I recall that a few years ago a niece of mine, upon joining one of the AMU hostels, found herself living with five other girls in a crowded room in the girls’ hostel. She had just one bed and no desk, to spend her days and nights including studying daily and for tests and examinations. Often the food in the dining halls is not satisfactory, the instructions in the classrooms are indifferent and the teachers do not pay attention to students. As I said earlier many students suffer at the hands of the feudal attitude of senior professors but have no real recourse.

The VC, busy with his pursuit of high level educational problems of the Muslim community and making visits to New Delhi, has little time for the mundane daily issues of the students, and gets disconnected from the masses of students. Thus when some leaders of the students’ union sometimes politicize the core grievances of the students, the VC looses patience and reacts. This cycle which has so often caused indiscipline, turmoil and violence at AMU repeats itself every few years. Unfortunately successive VCs have continued to downplay this issue and it has come back to blow up in their face.

e. Many a retired Muslim government officials and extended family members of AMU teachers, who have settled down in Aligarh, some of whom have business interests with the university, have vested interests in AMU and they expect the VC to pay attention to their needs. Also they want to have a role in the management of the affairs of AMU. In recent past some of them have taken undue advantage of the AMU land and properties. Efforts of some VCs to stop this abuse has resulted in some of these folks’ instigating turmoil and violence at the campus. Many a VCs have overlooked this problem which got compounded with some nefarious elements taking residence in the university’s hostels, operating unauthorized businesses and muscling the students and teachers. The lesson is that the VC should give enough attention to these issues, unpalatable as they may be.

f. The many alumni of AMU and their vast global network often want to have a role in the management of the affairs of AMU, yet they provide limited resource support for the development of AMU. The Alumni with either excessive praise or excessive criticism, but either way a significant demand on the time and attention of the VC, make the VC’s life complicated. The VC has to manage the role of the AMU alumni with a proper perspective.

g. To cope with all these expectations from the AMU community, the government and the nation’s Muslim community, the VC starts to juggle a large number of balls in the air and fights with lots of fires simultaneously. At the same time the possibility of the next assignment as a senior political leader representing the Muslim community distracts the VC’s attention away from the university’s routine issues.

Unlike the VC of any other university in India, who is not burdened with such diverse expectations, instead of being a good academic administrator of AMU who spends time improving across-the-board quality of education, the VC becomes a semi-political leader who practices the politics of expediency and gives too many promises that he has no chance to keep. Most of the time the core issues of students and teachers get short shrift and low priority from the VC , and finally they come back to harm AMU and bite the VC himself.
The end result is that as the VC steps into the last year of his term he notices that most of the visions and goals that he had set for AMU in his first year have either not survived the many controversies and political in fights that erupted, or he compromised them so much that he can not recognize them any more. One reason is that the VC detaches himself from the two communities that matter most for the welfare of AMU– the students and the teachers.

What can be done?

For instance with the current HRD minister’s encouragement AMU VC Prof Abdul Azis has launched an ambitious program to build five AMU extension centers remote from Aligarh. By itself it is a visionary program to improve college level education in the Muslim community. But managing this program is going to be a full time job in itself. It will take a lot of the VCs time, resources and attention, that will necessarily come out of the time that he needs to spend on the issues and programs of AMU itself. That may very well result in intensified problems at AMU. If the HRD ministry wants this program implemented it should first look at the constitution and charter of AMU that does not allow AMU to be a multi campus educational entity.

If the Government really wants to make AMU a multi campus university it should first implement proper legislation to revise the charter of AMU to give it the legal authority to be a multi-campus university, and change the office of VC into an “AMU System Director General”. The legislation should ensure that AMU’s minority status is not compromised by non-minority colleges in Aligarh district or elsewhere demanding affiliation with AMU. Failing to do that first will land AMU in lawsuits and much waste of AMU’s resources. Furthermore, the task of expanding AMU into a multi-campus higher education entity should be assigned to someone other than VC. May be to some top Muslim educationist or some former VC, or IAS official, so that the AMU VC is not sidetracked from his main responsibility of running AMU and is over-burdened. All of us should realize that with its massive student body and many colleges, AMU needs a dedicated full time VC to manage and improve AMU into a superior academic institution; not a part time VC who is also a part time leader of the Muslim community.

The VC’s job being a heavy burden he should delegate many of his responsibilities

by appointing a set of Pro-Vice Chancellors (PVCs) and Officers on Special Duty (OSD). The system will work much better if people for these positions are recruited from the IAS or IPS cadres on term appointments and given sufficient responsibility to carry out their functions. In the past recruiting these positions from among the AMU teachers has led to instances of influence peddling and politicking within the community of AMU teachers.

It can not be over-emphasized that the VC has to not only pay enough attention to the teachers and students, he also has to ensure that the relationship between these two sub communities is good. In view of the failures of several successive AMU VCs in the last two decades it is time that the Indian Muslim community, the Government and the AMU community introspect on the situation and makes suitable adjustments in the role of the AMU VC.

Photo: Sir Syed Hall, Aligarh Muslim University

November 28, 2008 

As a broad-based coalition committed to promoting justice, peace and human rights, we denounce in strongest possible terms the dastardly terror attacks in Mumbai and demand that the highest echelons of  political decision makers in India, be held accountable for what seems to be widespread and escalating trend of abject failures in protecting precious lives of ordinary citizens and preserving the pluralistic fabric of India.

We express our deepest gratitude to the thousands of security personnel for their courageous and selfless service in fighting these well-planned and coordinated attacks. We are deeply moved by still-emerging stories of the heroism and professionalism of the staffs at the affected hotels. Our hearts go out to the families of fallen heroes and the civilian victims.  We also note with a sense of great pride and satisfaction, that Indian citizens have by and large maintained harmony, understanding and resolve  in the face of successive acts of terrorism, thereby foiling the perpetrators’ principal objective.  We have no doubt that it is this unique strength of ordinary people which keeps India resilient, vibrant and united in the face of mounting internal and external challenges.  We call upon all political forces in India to build upon this unique character rather than foment divisive agenda for short term gains.

We are alarmed by the reports of foreign groups being involved in the attacks. We urge the government of India to identify these foreign groups and to reassure the nation that such threats are being dealt with in an effective manner.

Recent years have witnessed an alarming growth in the number of groups committing highly orchestrated acts of terrorism and violence against innocent civilians and public institutions.  As evident from this still unfolding tragedy,  a coordinated and open attack on this scale by a handful of people, completely paralyzing Mumbai – India’s largest city -  points to major and multiple break downs across the internal and external intelligence agencies, center-state coordination on law and order, as well as political-bureaucratic-civil society continuum.

 As non-resident Indians, we note how India has come to be recognized as a rising world class power as a result of successive recent governments assiduously pursuing and successfully accomplishing programs to advance the country’s profile on the international stage.  However, we also note with dismay and frustration that similar single minded focus and resolve seems to be lacking in successive governments, when it comes to ensuring the life, liberty and livelihood of ordinary citizens. We therefore call upon leaders across political spectrum towards a renewed sense of single minded focus on this very fundamental and basic purpose of government.

 While acknowledging the complexity of the situation and concerned about frequent terrorist attacks in recent months,  we feel nevertheless compelled to request Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh to make  much needed changes in the senior ranks of the government officials and the government security apparatus to ensure that the citizens and institutions of India are fully protected from acts of terrorism.

COALITION AGAINST GENOCIDE – A Coalition of Concerned Indian-Americans

Contact:

Gautam Desai [urvigautam@hotmail.com]
George Abraham [georgeabraham2003@yahoo.com]
Kaleem Kawaja [kaleemkawaja@hotmail.com]

Endorsing Organizations:

Aligarh Alumni Association, Washington, DC
American Muslim Physicians of Indian Origin (AMPI), Chicago. IL.
Association of Indian Muslims in America (AIM), Washington DC; (www.AimAmerica.org)
Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH); (www.stopfundinghate.org)
Friends of South Asia (FOSA), San Jose, California; (www.friendsofsouthasia.org)
Gujarati Muslim Association of America (GMAA), Chicago, IL
India Foundation, Michigan
Indian Minorities Advocacy Network (ImanNet), New York
Indian Muslim Council (IMC), Morton Grove, Illinois (www.imc-usa.org)
Indian Muslim Education Foundation of North America (IMEFNA), Chicago, IL
International Service Society, Michigan
Muslim Youth Awareness Alliance (MYAA), Michigan
Non-Resident Indians for a Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI), Michigan
Sikh American Heritage Organization, Wayne, IL.
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD), Vancouver, Canada (www.sansad.org)
Supporters of Human Rights in India (SHRI), Minnesota.
The Coalition for a Secular Democratic India (CSDI), Chicago. IL
Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment, Michigan
Individual Endorsements:

George Abraham
Habeb Ahmed
Dr. Syed S. Ahmed
Dr. Waheeduddin Ahmed
Girish Agrawal
Rasheed Ahmed
Dr Shahid Ali
Khalid Azam
Dr. Chinmoy Banerjee
Dr. Angana Chatterji
Nasir Chippa
Gautam Desai
Shalini Gera
Sapna Gupta
Imtiazuddin
Kaleem Kawaja
Attaulla Khan
Dr. Fazal Khan
Dr. Hyder Khan
Dr. Shahid Ali Khan
Dr Wasim Khan
Alex V. Koshy
Dr. Kursheed A. Mallick
Ghulam Mansuri
Biju Mathew
Saeed Patel
Shrikumar Poddar
Syed Azmatullah Quadri
Raju Rajagopal
Ravi Ravishankar
Dr. Shaik Sayeed
Dr. Hari Sharma
Ramkumar Sridharan
Raja Swamy
Dr. Shaik Ubaid
Firoz Vohra