In Mohammad Salim versus Nirmala Convent Higher Secondary School, a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice R V Raveendran decided that the plaintiff has to abide by the rules and regulations of educational institutions especially if it is a minority institution. The judgment, while correct in its spirit, is debatable in its implications. Private educational institutions do have a right to make their own rules and regulations but if it results into an infringement upon their fundamental right to freedom of religion of students then it is borderline unconstitutional.

In India such issues are being decided on a case by case basis and judgments are hampered by few legal precedence and fewer constructive debates. The comments made by the other judge on the bench,  Justice Markandey Katju, have already vitiated the atmosphere for the latter to happen in India. In particular his comments about beards/burqa and equating those Islamic symbols with Talibanisation are hurtful and more of a reflection upon himself than on either the Indian society or the Taliban terrorists.

While dismissing the plea of defendant, Justice Katju remarked, “We don’t want to have Talibans in the country. Tomorrow a girl student may come and say that she wants to wear a burqa. Can we allow it,”  and “I am secularist. We should strike a balance between rights and personal beliefs. We cannot overstretch secularism.” [The Hindu]

While it is true that the Taliban are bigoted, murderous thugs that force Muslim men to grow beard and Muslim women to wear burqa apart from committing other brutalities, those symbols in themselves do not constitute a support of the Taliban ideology when adopted voluntarily. By analogizing wearing burqa or growing beard with Taliban, Justice Katju has played into the hands of Taliban terrorists who want to portray themselves as the only true Muslims. He has made it difficult for regular Muslims wearing burqa or sporting beards now as it carries the taint of support of Taliban. It will allow Taliban and similar such terrorist groups to further misappropriate the religion of Islam as those opposing them can’t do it without first removing their beards or burqas. It will severely dent the argument that many of us have been making that extremist Taliban ideology can only be defeated by traditionalist Islamic thought but Justice Katju apparently sees no difference between a bearded cleric opposing Taliban and the Taliban themselves. How are the Deobandi ulema supposed to counter the ideological misrepresentations of Islam by Taliban terrorists when they themselves are being likened to them just because of some facial hairs?

Justice Katju also needs not to be reminded that it is not just the bearded Taliban fighters who could be terrorists but a clean-shaven western educated person could act in a similar fashion. The 21 terrorists who stuck on 9/11 or the 10 who terrorized Mumbai on 26/11 were not necessarily Justice Katju’s personification of how a terrorist should look like. Did Amir Ajmal Kasab wore a beard? Did Afzal Guru when he attacked the Parliament?

Justice Katju’s comments about burqa are equally baffling. Does he not know that a majority of Muslim women who wear burqa do so at their own volition? And by doing so they are just trying to follow modesty taught by their religion and not making a veiled statement in support of the Taliban. How different is Justice Katju’s assessment then from the ABVP goons who forcibly took burqas off Muslim students in Karnataka early March?

Mohammad Salim’s case was further weakened by his counsel arguing that keeping beard was an indispensable part of his client’s religion when he himself, as a Muslim, didn’t sport a beard. However the august court does not need to be reminded that it is not for them to decide what constitutes religion for an individual and what does not. Another court a few months back denied permission to two IAF officers to grow beard as it is not allowed in the armed forces. But Sikh armed force officers are allowed to keep beards as in court’s opinion keeping beard is an integral part of Sikhism. Keeping beard is part of Islam as well and it is up to a Muslim to make that choice form himself. The courts can’t decide what is required of Muslims and what is not as it can’t decide who is a Sikh and who is not. A recent report by Washington Post claims that less than 25% of Sikhs under 30 wear turbans even though it is an integral part of their belief. What happens when an un-bearded, un-turbanded or un-long-hair Sikh decides to seek admission to a Sikh minority institute? Should he be denied admission under Sikh quota because he is in violation of his religious beliefs? A similar case happened in 1998 when one Yadwinder Singh sued Dashmesh Institute of Research and Dental Sciences in Faridkot when it refused admission to him based upon his cut hair. A court in Punjab ordered the institute to pay Rs 7 Lakh as damages to the complainant Yadwinder Singh.

Prima facie it appears that Justice Katju and the bench over-reached their jurisdiction and some of the comments made by the bench went way beyond the scope of the case. What is good for Sikhs is good for Muslims and other religious denominations as well. At the very minimum if Mohammad Salim’s Sikh classmates are sporting beards as part of their religious traditions then he should be allowed to do the same on that basis. A healthy debate on private institutions right to set rules and regulations is needed. At the same time the courts can’t litigate religion from the bench.

Photo: Bearded Muslim

Advertisement: A Muslim among non-Muslims

Twenty five years ago, for the first time since Indian independence, a political party came to power at the center by whipping up a mass communal hysteria. That party was the Congress and its leader was Rajiv Gandhi, who commented that the “earth shakes when a big tree falls”, as if the anti- Sikh pogrom was the most natural phenomenon. He was soon to backtrack from such a frontal communal posture towards balanced communalism. He let open the locks of the Babri Masjid and simultaneously supported the Muslim Law Bill. In both cases, he provided a shot in the arm to the regressive sections among the Hindus and the Muslims.

The BJP- a relatively minor political entity in the 1984 elections, had been long gestating in various garbs for over six decades. It was quick to learn the technique from the Congress’s 1984 performance and catapulted itself to seize power at the center by whipping up a frenzy of mass hysteria leading to the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992. Rajiv Gandhi was no longer on the scene by then, and it was left to PV Narasimha Rao to be remembered for the infamy of 6th December 1992. Nowadays, it is also often overlooked that the destruction of the Babri Masjid provided a larger fillip to Muslim fundamentalism in South Asia- in Bangladesh and Pakistan. 

The 1984 anti- Sikh pogrom was also the last time that the Congress party was able to use its total monopoly of the mass media. From the days of Sanjay Gandhi when he used the Doordarshan to show the popular flick ‘Bobby’ on the same day as JP was to address a meeting at the Ram Lila grounds in Delhi, the new Congress under Rajiv switched to showing Ramayana and Mahabharta during prime time television. The Congress’s flirtation with the age of the color TV was to take a beating with the emergence of the audio and video cassettes that the Hindutva movement initiated and en- cashed. 

Fascist movements in Germany and Italy too had proved themselves to be very effective and early adapters of the then modern means of mass communication- the loudspeaker and the radio. Recent advances in technology have made it possible, however, to take on and dent- to whatever limited extent- the monopoly of the few on media. This is borne out in the case of Varun Gandhi’s recent speeches that have put him in the dock now.

The contrast between 2004 and 2009 is exacerbated by the accidental infamy that Varun Gandhi has gained in the last few days. It points to the fact that it has been left to a hitherto a very minor leader of the party to articulate what the Sadhvi Ritambaras during 1989- 1992 and then Narendra Modi and the late Pramod Mahajan took up later. The central BJP leadership is no longer using the appeal of hard Hindutva during the national elections. 

New media- including the emergence of a new generation of journalists- and the sheer proliferation of new technologies including easy access to video filming (as in case of Varun Gandhi’s speeches) and the competition among the television channels makes it more difficult for anyone party or agenda to monopolize. Of course, it was just five years ago that the same media shrilly cried that India was shining. How the media operates and how technology can be harnessed and used as a democratic tool has a reciprocal relation to the kind of government that is in power. A by and large secular government at the center in the last five years is in sharp contrast to the previous six long years of Hindutva. 

The credit for this sharp contrast between the run up to the 2004 and 2009 elections goes by and large to the political acumen of Mrs Sonia Gandhi. It needs to be remembered that she took up the reins of the Congress in 1998 when BJP sought to form the government at the center in a 13 party coalition. She was then able to stem the large scale desertion by rank and file  from the Congress to the BJP. In 2004, she led the Congress from the front taking up the Hindutva bandwagon almost single handed-ly so much so that in Gujarat it was seen as a contest between Narendra Modi and Mrs Gandhi. In Gujarat, as in much of India, there is little to distinguish between state level leaders of the two parties. A former RSS pracharak Shankarsinh Vaghela could hardly be an ideological antidote to Narendra Modi. 

What the UPA has done in the last five years on the question of communalism is not so much to take on Hindutva head on, as to deflect it from the center of political discourse. The end result is very evident- in the absence of communalism- and in some cases like in Karnataka, boomeraging with many of its support base especially among the urban middle classes- it has been practically left without a Unique Selling Proposition. The economic agenda is practically common between the Congress and the BJP (and even the CPM practically endorses it in West Bengal). 

Gone are the days when the BJP leaders masqueraded as gods and when Vajpayee anointed Advani as Ram and the late Pramod Mahajan as Lakshman, Advani likened himself to Arjuna and the increasingly sidelined Uma Bharti compared herself to Eklavya !

The other achievement that Mrs Gandhi needs to be credited is that for the first time in the history of independent India, a non- Brahmin prime minister has completed a full term of five years. 

Again, it was Narasimha Rao who re- established the dominance of Brahmins in an increasingly Mandalized polity.

Writing in 2003, veteran journalist Saeed Naqvi asserted :

When Rajiv Gandhi came to power in 1984, in a House of 544 there were 198 upper caste members of Lok Sabha. Of these, 79 were Brahmins. By 1990, mandalisation had so stirred up society that in the 1991 elections,upper castes, particularly Brahmins, fell like nine pins. 

P.V.Narasimha Rao took swift rearguard action to keep the Brahmin from political oblivion. 

…

Rao played no mean role in virtually handing the baton to Atal Bihari Vajpayee. And when Vajpayee completes his five year term, he will have sustained a tradition set by Nehru. Every Brahmin prime minister has either completed his full term or exceeded it. Of the 56 years since Independence, the Brahmin has been at the helm in New Delhi for over 50 years.

As a corollory to what Naqvi states above, one needs to point out that in the past, prime ministers who have lasted the full term have only been Brahmins. The Congress itself has given the country a sequence of Brahmin prime minsters- Jawaharlal Nehru, Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao. The BJP gave the country another Brahmin prime minister- Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The non- Brahmin prime ministers- Charan Singh, VP Singh, Chandrasekar, IK Gujral and Deve Gowda  have come from the non- Congress and non- BJP outfits. None of them managed to complete their term. Incidentally, between 1984 and 2004, the number of Brahmins in the Lok sabha has declined from 20% to 9%.

Dr Manmohan Singh is the first non- Brahmin prime minister to complete a full five year term. That he should come from the Congress party is another unique aspect. Ashish Nandy has pointed out somewhere that for the non- Brahmin Mohandas Gandhi, a bania by caste,  he needed to take a larger than life persona- that of a Mahatma- to emerge as the leader of the freedom movement. This underscores how difficult and crucial it is to overcome one of the strongest structural fault- lines of Indian society- that of caste. By insisting on Dr Singh’s candidature and providing full support to him in the last five years, Mrs Gandhi has also succeeded in winning back the confidence of the Sikhs and other minorities.

By scoring this double whammy, Mrs Gandhi has proved her early detractors wrong and skeptics like Uma Bharati correct. Two years ago, Ms Bharati had warned the BJP that it will be swamped by Mrs Gandhi. Her leading role is also announced in the Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh’s candid admission that no secular government is possible at the center without Mrs Sonia Gandhi. What a far cry from the days when she was seen as another ‘gungi gudiya’ and much worse! That kind of language and personal attacks on Mrs Gandhi are now conspicuously and thankfully absent. 

In this process, Mrs Gandhi carried forward not so much the legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru as that of Mahatma Gandhi. This started with her decision not to accept the prime ministership that she so richly deserved as the leader of the leading party. 

In a speech two years ago, Mrs Gandhi remarked on a seminar on “Peace, Non-violence and Empowerment, Gandhian Philosophy in the 21st Century”:

Ms. Gandhi said the real issue was not the relevance of Mahatma Gandhi but “our preparedness for him and whether we are ready to embrace him once again. It is not a question of going back to Mahatma Gandhi as much as it is of going forward with him. This is not as simple as it sounds. While he fascinates and enchants, we have to admit that it is difficult to emulate him. It is easy to make him an icon. But infinitely more exacting to make him our beacon. He did not provide us with final answers, he wanted us to find our own and make our own experiments with truth,” she said.

Historically, among the educated Indian elite, the dislike towards Gandhi is not new. From Sripad Dange’s denouement in his defence speech in 1920 later published as Lenin vs. Gandhi (in which Lenin emerged victorious, in case you were wondering), to Golwalkar’s A Bunch of Thoughts, Gandhi was not the image in whom some among the Indian upper and middle classes saw themselves. The loin cloth was not exactly their idea of making a fashion statement, whatever those peasants might have thought.

The Hindutva’s dislike for Gandhi had bordered on fanaticism, no surprise, therefore, that he was assassinated by a former Hindu Mahasabha member. Later, in an irony of sorts, the political inheritor of Hindutva, the BJP, flirted with Gandhian Socialism when both Gandhi and Socialism were still in vogue in the late seventies. However, it was the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci who best interpreted the political genius of Gandhi’s un- theorized strategy. The Hindutva movement has effectively used the same tactics- that Gramsci called ‘war of position’ and the ‘war of movement’ to advance its political agenda. Mrs Gandhi, in her own manner, has returned to that strategy. She has extended the possibilties of Gandhism today in context of rabid communal discourse of the sangh parivar.

Given her achievements in the past five years in turning the tide as far as Hindutva as an election platform is concerened, her words need to be taken seriously, and with the respect that she, and her achievements in countering Hindutva, richly deserve.

Photo: Indian Flag Colors

Advertisement: A Muslim among non-Muslims

Pakistan avoided yet another crisis. Although oscillating between corrupt civilian governments and military dictatorships, crises have been a way of life for Pakistan. But this crisis was different. It was not particularly for or against a leader. It was the third act of a grass-roots movement, led by the lawyers, in favor of the rule of law under a constitutional framework.

Pakistan appears to be on the verge of emerging as a functioning Constitutional Democracy, with primacy of laws and constitution that has eluded Pakistan for 61 years of its checkered history.

Three times in the span of two years the lawyers, men and women in their somber black coats defied the illegal edicts of the government and succeeded in forcing the government to back down.

The Current Crisis

The current crisis precipitated when, presumably with the connivance of President Zardari the current Supreme Court (largely considered illegitimate) barred the leader of opposition Mr. Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shabaz from contesting elections and holding offices. President Zardari recklessly dismissed the Shabaz led government of Panjab, the most populous province.

This brought out the lawyers back on the streets for the third time with planned marches to the capital, Islamabad, demanding that Mr. Zardari keep the promise he made during the elections of February 2008 to restore the Supreme Court justices fired by the former President Musharraf. The leader of the opposition Mr. Nawaz Sharif joined in the protest.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of President Zardari, in the face of massive civil demonstrations averted its breakup when President Zardari yielded to the pressure from the senior leaders of the PPP led by Prime Minister Gilani, the United States and the Pakistani military. Prime Minister Gilani diffused the crisis by announcing that the Supreme Court Judges and the former Chief Justice Iftekhar Chaudhry will resume offices following the resignation of the current justices (considered illegal) on the 21st of March. It led to widespread nation wide jubilation.

This was not a win for Mr. Sharif, though he is the beneficiary of it. Large sections of the population consider Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif as corrupt and there have been legal verdicts against them. It is the victory of a movement led by lawyers demanding respect for the constitution and the rule of law.

The First And Second Civil Disobedience Movement Of Lawyers

The first time the lawyers led the movement for the rule of law was in March 2007, when on spurious charges President, General Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Chaudhry for taking up the petition on behalf of hundreds of people missing, allegedly at secret detention centers accused of terrorism. Eventually he was exonerated and General Musharraf backed down.

The movement sprang up the second time in November 2007, when only days before the Supreme Court of Pakistan was to give its verdict on a petition challenging the constitutionality of President, General Musharraf’s re-election in October 2007, because he held on to the post of the Chief of Staff of the Army simultaneously. President Musharraf suspended the constitution, jailed several justices of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice Iftekhar Chaudhry and appointed a new slate of judges who ruled in his favor. But under the intense pressure of the civil disobedience led by the legal profession, General Musharraf had to yield and gave up the post of the Army Chief of Staff, appointing General Kayani in his place.

The Elections Of 2008 And Mr. Zardari’s Rise To Power

New Assembly elections were held in February 2008. The two main opposition parties, the PPP led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the faction of Pakistan Muslim League (PLM) led by the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had one thing in common, the promise to reinstate the fired Chief Justice and other judges.

PPP leader Benazir Bhutto fell to an assassin’s bullet at an election rally on the 27th of December 2007. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, a reviled figure in Pakistan, stepped into the vacuum; and partly with the sympathy vote for popular Benazir Bhutto the PPP won the largest share of seats followed by PLM. Since no party won an outright majority, the two largest parties the PPP and the PLM formed a coalition government.

The coalition broke up when Mr. Zardari reneged on his promise to reinstate the ousted judges by President Musharraf. In August 2008, President Musharraf resigned under a threat of impeachment, and in September Mr. Zardari was elected the President of Pakistan. Since then Mr. Zardari has reneged on all the inconvenient promises and has tried to accrue power.

Pakistan has floundered rudderless in the crosscurrents of internal power struggle between the corrupt civilian governments and endemic coups by the military dictators; and external pressure from the United States to serve its foreign policy aims through the Pakistani military for the last fifty years. The result has been complete decimation of the Pakistani judiciary. The Supreme Court has become the handmaiden of whoever holds the reins of power. Chief Justices have been appointed and fired at the whims of the government in power many times.

The New Opportunity For Pakistan

Fortunately for Pakistan Mr. Zardari was thwarted by the third civil disobedience by the lawyers. The power equation has also changed. Unlike the past, the forces that traditionally supported those in power in Pakistan had to take other realities into consideration.

The American government is the main economic backer of Pakistan, but under President Obama, it realizes that the war on terrorism cannot be won by propping up corrupt oppressive regimes. President Obama conveyed his strong disapproval of Mr. Zardari’s grab for power. The army, the most important instrument of power in Pakistan has had enough under President, General Musharraf. The new Chief of Staff General Kayani told Mr. Zardari in no uncertain term that the army would not intervene to support him. The top leadership of the PPP including the Prime Minister Mr. Gilani, weary of Mr. Zardari’s leadership, let him know that they were not behind him. And finally the police that were supposed to stop the marchers refused to use force on the silent peaceful marchers, except at some places in Karachi the strong hold of the PPP.

The change in circumstances will exert an enormous pressure on all concerned. The reinstated Chief Justice Chaudhry will feel the weight of responsibility to make the Supreme Court a true guardian of the constitution. The army has had enough for the time being and will try to influence the government, but not as heavy handedly, and the politicians have learnt at least for the immediate future that they cannot take people to be supine as before. The lawyers movement has shown no ulterior motive to form a competing center of power, it has disbanded after every success to pursue their private lives. Yet it has rejuvenated in the times of need.

The maturing of Pakistan as a Constitutional Democracy; I hope a liberal democracy, with safeguards for religious, ethnic, linguistic and other minorities, will strengthen the authority of the elected government and will obviously be good for Pakistan. It will also be beneficial to countries with interest in Pakistan. Though it will take time, but after eight years of floundering in Afghanistan the new Obama administration realizes that US efforts in combating the terrorism will succeed only if Pakistan is not a failed state. A constitutional democracy in Pakistan will also be better for India because the relations will not depend on the whims of individuals. It will lead to better cooperation and enhance the possibility of reconciliation between two democratically elected constitutional governments.

Photo: Pakistan Navy

Advertisement: A Muslim among non-Muslims

As long as my memory goes I remember Muslims in general and Indian Muslims in particular, have been criticized for being extremists in religious matters and though, the criticism went, there are a few moderate Muslims, they do not take any stand or refuse to stand up and be counted and always, extremists carry the day. This has been an unending criticism of Muslims.

It is not that in the past there were no extremists among Hindus. But they were not so visible and the intellectuals as well as the media thought that they were liberal and that there may be, of course a few exceptions. Also, Hindu liberals, unlike the Muslim ones, were not afraid of taking a stand. These attitudes were, least to say, historical, apolitical and static. Liberalism and extremism are not, and cannot be, eternal categories, as often assumed.

Human attitudes cannot remain permanently frozen in one or the other category. One has to take a dynamic view of the society, as in any society new realities keep emerging. An extremist today could become a liberal tomorrow and a liberal today may turn into an extremist in the coming days. It also depends on political conditions. A politically dominant community is more likely to be liberal than a politically suppressed and marginalized community.

It would be wrong to assume that historically Indian Muslims have been, or at least the dominant trend among them has been, conservatism or extremism. Indians are inheritors of a very rich syncretic culture, which would not have been possible without liberal trend among Muslims. In fact in any religious community there are multiple trends coexisting in any historical epoch. It depends on our politics as to which trend we choose to highlight.

Sufis have contributed richly to our sycretic culture and to Indian Islam. In fact sufi Islam has been a dominant trend in India, Throughout the medieval ages several regions like Kashmir, Sindh, Kutch, present regions of Karnataka, Punjab and parts of present day U.P. and Rajasthan, were highly influenced by sufi culture which was moderate open and liberal. Even places like Ayodhya and Varanasi had pockets of sufi culture. Dara Shikoh translated Upanishads into Persian sitting in Varanasi.

But communal propaganda deliberately ignored this dominant trend and chose to highlight the role of certain kings like Mahmood Ghazni, Aurangzeb and others so as to derive political advantage. The partition of India, which itself was the project of a section of elite Muslims to retain their political domination, worsened the matter and Muslims, in majority political parlance came to be associated with fanaticism and extremism. And the few liberal Muslims they spotted were also condemned as cowards, unable to take a firm stand.

As stated above extremism is a product not of religion but of political conditions, Hindu extremism emerged as a strong trend since mid-eighties of the last century when, due to the emergence of lower caste Hindus, domination of Brahmanical strata came under severe threat. Today Hindu extremism of RSS, Bajrang Dal, VHP and BJP itself is a well-known phenomenon.

I need not dwell upon the spread of this extremism. Minorities are its target and hundreds of citizens have become the target of its wrath. Narendra Modis, Bal Thackerays, Singhals and Togadias are dominating political discourse among Hindutva leaders. Even hundreds of journalists and intellectuals show contempt for democratic discussions and basic freedoms. It is not that only minorities suffer from this intolerant attitude. Hindu secular and liberal elements are too their target. Mr. Singhal of the VHP threatened Navin Patnaik when he broke alliance with BJP.

A journalist who claims to be quite fair and objective and keeps on criticizing Muslim fanaticism and often enters into discussion with me wrote to me the other day and mark his words: “who is this rascal Babar to invade India….” This journalist publishes a column regularly in one of the weeklies and keeps attacking Islam. Thus it will be seen that fanaticism or extremism is not a religious but political and social phenomenon and is found in all religious communities of the world; be they Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians or Muslims.

Indian Muslims do have their quota of extremists and fanatics. But today in the given conditions, extremists and fanatics are increasingly being pushed aside, especially in the post-Babri demolition period. A section of Muslim political and religious leadership showed extremist attitude during the Shah Bano and Babri Masjid-Ramjanambhoomi controversy. They adopted a confrontationist political attitude during those days harming the cause of Muslims.

However, demolition of Babri Masjid and the communal carnage of Muslims that followed in Mumbai, Surat and several other cities, marginalized them. They learnt a lesson at a heavy cost and began to adopt moderation in their attitude. The Hindu militancy totally subdued them. Muslim masses began to shun extremist leaders and a section of religious leaders too got the message.

Darul Uloom, Deoband, an important Islamic institution, has always played important role in Indian Islam in late nineteenth century onwards and came out sharply against partition of the country and has adopted even more moderate position of late. It is reflected in a series of sensible fatwas it has issued recently.

When a controversy arose about cow slaughter, especially on Baqar Eid day when Muslims sacrifice animals, Deoband issued a fatwa that it is not obligatory on Muslims to sacrifice cow and Muslims should avoid sacrificing cow on the day of Baqar Eid. It was a very constructive attitude and with view few exceptions, Muslims generally followed it. Similarly, recently when Mr. Singhal of VHP demanded that Darul Ulum declare India to be Darul Aman, Maulana Mahmood Madani readily declared India Darul Aman silencing Mr. Singhal. It is a different issue that Mr.Singhal may now raise some other demand. Time alone will show as what to the next demand he is going to come up with.

Also, Darul Ulum Deoband has strongly and unequivocally condemned ‘jihadism’ of Muslim extremists and militants and Maulana Madani has denounced it as fasad, not jihad. Fasad which is also used in Hindi/Urdu, means corruption, disorder and bloodshed. Thus it was an apt description of ‘jihadism’ of these politically motivated actors. The Jami’at-ul-Ulama-i-Hind held huge rallies against so called jihad and denounced it in no uncertain terms. It was once again a very constructive role played by Jami’at as they had played during partition movement.

These rallies against ‘jihadism’ have sent a very clear message to Muslim masses in India not to support directly or indirectly such killings by invoking religious doctrine much misunderstood and corrupted in political sphere. These rallies are still continuing, though they are not always covered by the mainstream media.

Recently Darul Uloom has issued yet another fatwa after the general elections were announced which is quite helpful for secular democratic values in India. The fatwa says that Indian Muslims should vote but not on the basis of religion. The fatwa further says, “The vote should not be kept back. One should vote for the party and the leader that is better and works in favour of Muslims and the country. India is a secular democratic country. Hence it is out of place to look at its politics in Islamic perspective and test the parties and political leaders on Islamic principles”, the fatwa says. This is yet again a constructive approach to promote secularism and secular values in the country. Today our voting takes place blatantly on the basis of caste and religion. One hopes Muslims will follow this sensible advice.

It should also not be construed to mean that there are no other trends among Indian Muslims. There are extremists and militants, for sure. However, this moderate trend is emerging as a very important trend and is represented by one of the most prestigious Islamic seminaries in India. It is also to be noted that even this seminary continues to be quite rigid on certain other questions like women’s rights etc. But it is a different question.

This fatwa, along with others referred to above, sends an important message to Indian Muslims: it is secular democracy which ensures peace security and progress and that religious extremism and extremist politics based on that is totally destructive of all human values. Let us remember it is secular democracy, which has cemented our unity across religions, languages and cultures. Extremism has always tried to weaken it be it Muslim extremism or Hindu extremism.

Again I would like to emphasize that we should not take a static view of society, as society is ever changing and frozen attitudes on our part will not help us understand the complex and dynamic reality objectively. A social scientist should ever be conscious of these changes taking place around us. That will help break our prejudices and help understand each other better.
___________________________________
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Mumbai.
E-mail: csss@mtnl.net.in

Photo: Meena Kadri

Advertisement: A Muslim among non-Muslims

It was another day of my childhood. I ran out of the door of our compound into what was a never-ending grassland. I’d heard my cousin calling me out by ringing his cycle bell.

As I came out, he called me from the street a little far away. “Today, I’ll ride my cycle on the road,” he shouted, waving at me, “And not on the grass… Too many trees there for a good ride. And the grass drags your speed you know. You’ll know when you learn cycling.” Big brother would speak like an expert. “All you have to do right now is to watch me speed up. I’ll show you the dust I’m gonna raise. Like a car!” As he rode past me, I saw some dust trailing behind the wheels and I shouted, “Dust! That’s like a real car!”

During those times, when I used to come out of the compound of my house, I’d step into an endless grove. It was a vast orchard, the end of which was out of sight; perhaps even out of the imagination of a child that I was. With all densely grown up trees — apple, pear, almond, walnut, peach, what not — that covered everything that was visible, it seemed as if even the sunlight would fail to penetrate and touch the ground beneath.

At a distant spot, a brick-house could be seen through the gaps between the barks of the trees. And it’s tin roof was visible through the holes between the leaves. It was the only inhabitance to meet the eyes. But unfortunately it belonged to the guard. He was the one person who stood between us and the tempting fruits.

But the mother of all fears was the two-storey mud-house just inside the orchard. The children believed that it was haunted, haunted by a ghost, who lived there and came out only in the night. We called him Waaiwopph. God knows where the name came from! The mud-house was originally thought to belong to the previous guard, who was mercilessly thrown out by the Waaiwopph. Some kids had seen him one night, wearing a white robe and a skull cap. I’d seen him only once, in a nightmare. He didn’t have a cap!

There was one more view of this sight, a different scene altogether! And that was from our rooftop…

You could see all the tree tops close together, spread out like a green carpet on a vast area bound only on the far edge by tall, slender trees, and dotted in between by the graceful Chinars. These formed an endless line, which was actually the shore of the world famous signature of this city of Srinagar, the Dal. Through the line of those trees, at some spots, you could see the silver shine — the serene waters of the Dal, dazzling under the sun. At some spots, you could see the colour of the wood of the house-boats. At times you’d spot the shrine of Hazratbal. Then further still, beyond the Boulevard, the small mountain ranges backed by the mighty Himalayas would kiss the bright blue sky from the top, forming in a perfect compliment, a horizon straight from a classical painting.

But that was quite a long time back… in the middle of 1980s… I’m quite older now. But more than myself, my dwelling wears a worn out, heaving look…

The orchard is no longer there. Some years back, it was partitioned. Partitioned endlessly. Barbed wires in every direction came up to demarcate each individual property that was sold. The trees were chopped down one by one. Leaving the interiors lay naked. Now the sun would shine as if to poke fun at the bare ground below.

For nearly two decades, my neighbours were a million trees. Now buildings sprouted at every other step. Every wrong foot. Then there are these lanes and by lanes with walls high and ugly, a legacy of these violent years. And the grassy paths that once existed have turned into dusty tracks.

Talk about that other view, from the top… The green blanket has been replaced by a canopy of tinned roofs — coloured, patchy, rusty, hideous. The Dal might still be there somewhere. But tomorrow…? Seventy-five square kilometers some centuries back. Twenty-five a few decades back. And barely twelve today. This Dal!

Yes, I’m quite older now.

Today. It’s another day. I’m not a child anymore. As I step out of the door of my compound, I see a huge wall right in front, almost like a slap on my face. Behind me, the small garden seems like a piece of heaven. Still, I walk towards the street outside. I see a car at a distance speeding towards me. As it passes me by, I lose my sight in the thick cloud of dust trailing behind it, and I close my eyes. I hold my breath, cover my face with both my palms and turn around. I clear the lump in my throat and get back inside to heave a sigh.

In my little piece of heaven left over, I sit quietly.

Photo: Dal Lake

Advertisement: A Muslim among non-Muslims

In Life, the Universe and Everything, Douglas Adams tells us the story of the residents of the planet Krikket—Krikketers. The Krikketers had never imagined that a Universe could exist outside their little planet. Due to a certain chain of events, however, when they did discover than many worlds lay outside of their little planet, they were shocked. So they resolved to do the only thing possible to get things to fit their world view: they would destroy the rest of the Universe.

Although I doubt it, Douglas Adams could very well have been writing of the terrorists who have been quite a nuisance for the world of late. Unable to accept a world that doesn’t fit in with their view of what it should be like, they’ve calmly decided to annihilate. And of course, in what completes my analogy, these terrorists types are the prime suspects in the attack on the Lankan cricketers that took place in Lahore.

Incidentally and interestingly, most Indians reacted to this attack with a mixture of outrage and, also, a rather overwhelming feeling of schadenfreude. Newspapers pontificated about Pakistan’s imminent demise, the Congress compared the country to Somalia and users on Rediff (always a reliable barometer of public mood) praised the BCCI for pulling India out of the tour.

It could always be argued, however, that all this is very much par for the course. In a Blue Star-esque twist, Pakistan’s heartland is now under attack from the same forces which it supported to try and push its agenda in India as well as Afghanistan. A little bit of glee with Pakistan in such hot water is but natural. Boys, after all, will be boys.

However, most Indians don’t realise that bad as Pakistan is to have as a neighbour, the take-over of the country by these Jihadi jokers spells even more bad news as far as India is concerned. At the end of the day, there can be only thing worse than having Pakistan as a neighbour—and that’s having no state as a neighbour on our west.

Of course, in a heartwarming show of solidarity with the Indians, quite a few Pakistanis have also behaved quite daftly. Everyone from RAW to Mossad as well as the odd actual terrorist was blamed. As late as Friday, Pakistan’s Interior Minter went on record saying that the “foreign hand” cannot be ruled.

Taken at face value, that’s perfectly all right. I mean, let’s face it, neither you nor I will ever know the whole truth behind this attack or any of the other stuff that keeps on happening which involve the powers that be. So let me take this opportunity to offer a bit of unsolicited advice to the Pakistanis. In this situation, they should do what every God-fearing, honest man would do when he doesn’t know the truth—invent his own.

As it is a couple of months back everybody in Pakistan was going on about how terrorism is a problem that affects Pakistan more than any other country in the world. Terrorism might be just a problem for everyone else, went the argument, but its an existential threat for Pakistan. However, quite a few Pakistanis, it seems, weren’t convinced. The happenings in the county’s north where girl’s schools were destroyed, indestructible radio stations set up and people killed for not hiking up their shalwars still left some people with a reasonable amount of doubt as to just what these bearded chaps were up to.

So as I see it, this this very unfortunate attack gives Pakistan an opportunity to once and for all paint these terrorists as the Calibans of out times—savage monsters who will stop at nothing to people the planet with little Calibans. And what better way to convince the people of Pakistan of their true intentions that by showing them how these brutes would even attack a team of friendly and harmless cricketers thereby bringing international cricket in Pakistan to a standstill.

You never know, this attack might just be what the doctor ordered for Pakistan. All Pakistan has to do now is to blame the right people.

Photo: Playing Cricket

Advertisement: A Muslim among non-Muslims

In his Mathnawi the great Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi tells a story about Moses and a shepherd. Moses happens upon the shepherd and hears him address God: “If you were here, God, I would serve you. I’d comb your hair and wash your clothes. I’d kill the lice on your body. I’d milk my goats and offer you a bowl of fresh milk.” Moses, highly offended, accuses the shepherd of blasphemy and threatens him into silence. But then Moses himself is reprimanded by God for coming between Him and the shepherd, for causing a break instead of a union.

Unfortunately God doesn’t speak to mankind anymore, otherwise I imagine he would give the same reprimand to those who demand Rushdie’s head. For The Satanic Verses may rightfully be seen as a “religious” book, written not out of contempt for the tradition but out of anguish over it. More than anything, it’s a book about a crisis of faith, a human condition that is usually not allowed for by those who would live by the certainty of a distant hell and heaven. Rumi’s shepherd believed in God and related to Him in the vocabulary of a shepherd; Rushdie does not believe in God yet feels compelled to try and make, in what may be called a Rushdie-an manner, a statement of faith. For Rushdie the opposite of faith is not disbelief. That is “Too final, certain, closed. Itself a kind of belief.” For him, the opposite of faith is “Doubt. The human condition…”

Here, I must point out that the first and, in the opinion of some of the most profound minds in Islam, the greatest such crisis of faith was faced by Satan when he refused to obey God’s command (as stated in the Qur’an) to bow before Adam, and thus insisted on retaining the absolute integrity of his devotion to the One. Satan was punished by God, but has been celebrated by Sufis such as al-Hallaj (tenth century) and poets such as Iqbal (twentieth century). Iqbal called Satan “Lord of the People who Cherish Separation,” and saw in his rebellion a creative tension.

Rushdie describes his book as an attempt to “give a secular, humanist vision of the birth of a great world religion.” I have no reason not to believe him. In fact, I submit that in Rushdie’s own terms, “Mahound the Prophet” and “Submission the Idea” are not only triumphant but also worthy of our respect. Repeatedly, various characters in the book are asked: What kind of idea are you? When you are weak will you compromise; when you are strong will you be generous? Abu Simbel, the Grandee of Jahilia and an enemy of Mahound, answers the first question: “I bend. I sway. I calculate the odds, trim my sails, manipulate, survive.” Rushdie’s Mahound is also human, he too has his moment of compromise, the moment of the Satanic Verses, but then he transcends it and embraces the inevitable.

What is the moment of the Satanic Verses? Al-Lat, Manat and al-Uzza were three goddesses in pre-Islamic Arabia. Their names occur in the Qur’an, in chapter 53, verses 19-23, but a story of how those verses were first revealed and later partly abrogated because they allegedly contained words favourable to the goddesses, was told by at least one of the earliest commentators with reference to verse 52 in chapter 22. The exegist suggests a desire on the part of the Prophet to make Islam easier for the Meccans, but since Qur’an is the Word of God, he assigns the effective role to Satan, who, he says, placed the compromising words on the Prophet’s tongue without his noticing it. However, a later revelation informed the Prophet of what had happened; it also abrogated the Satanic words.Most of the later commentators reject this version, though some of them explain the event by arguing that Satan only caused the unbelievers to hear those words, that those words never actually crossed the Prophet’s lips. Contemporary Muslim scholarship is unanimous in rejecting the entire story; many Western scholars accept it but do not question the Prophet’s sincerity.

Does Rushdie charge his Mahound with insincerity, does he accuse him of fraud? This is how Rushdie’s Gibreel explains revelations: “…in these moments it begins to seem that the archangel is actually inside the Prophet, I am the dragging in the gut, I am the angel being extruded from the sleeper’s navel, I emerge, Gibreel Farishta, while my other self, Mahound, lies , entranced, I am bound to him, navel to navel, by a shining cord of light, not possible to say which of us is dreaming the other. We flow in both directions along the umbilical cord.”

These words contain the empathy of a secular mind, not charges of deception. To hear those charges, listen to William Muir Esqr. of Bengal Civil Service in his The Life of Mahomet in 4 volumes, published in 1858. After recording the incident of the Prophet’s first revelation, Muir comments: “Thus was Mahomet, by whatever deceptive process, led to the high blasphemy of forging the name of God, a crime repeatedly stigmatized in the Coran itself as the greatest that mankind can commit” (vol. 2, p. 75).

I bring up William Muir for two reasons. One has to do with Satan. While discussing the possible explanations of the Prophet’s belief in his own inspiration, Muir writes, “It is incumbent upon us to consider this question from a Christian point of view, and to ask whether the supernatural influence, which appears to have acted upon the soul of the Arabian Prophet, may not have proceeded from the Evil One and his emissaries. It is not for us to dogmatize on so recondite and mysterious a subject; but the views which Christian verity compels us to entertain regarding the Angel of darkness and his followers, would not be satisfied without some allusion to the fearful power exrcised by them, as one at least of the possible causes of the fall of Mahomet — the once sincere enquirer — into the meshes of deception.”

The Christian polemicist would have Satan as the active cause of all the revelations; the Muslim exegist assigns only the abrogated words to Satan’s powers, the rest to Allah through Gibreel; but Rushdie’s secular purpose is different. Again listen to his Gibreel, who “hovering-watching from his highest camera angle, knows one small detail, just one tiny thing that’s a bit of a problem here, namely that it was me both times, baba, me first and second also me. From my mouth, both the statement and the repudiation, verses and converses, universes and reverses, the whole thing, and we all know how my mouth got worked.”

The second reason I bring up William Muir is that when Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who single-handedly changed the destiny of Muslim South Asia in the nineteenth century, read Muir’s book, he did not burn it. Instead, in 1869, he sailed off to England, spent many months in the British Museum libraries, wrote a well-documented rejoinder in Urdu, had it translated into English and then published it from London with his own money. And if anyone thinks Sayyid Ahmad Khan feared his English masters they don’t know what they are talking about.

I don’t deny that there are words, actions and images in the book that would deeply hurt the sentiments of any good Muslim or even of many good Christians and Jews. Even a dubious Muslim like myself felt offended several times. If I imagine that God would scold those who want Rushdie dead, I have no doubt that God would slap Rushdie’s wrist hard and more than a few times for not being more sensitive to the sentiments of exactly those whom he wished to champion. But I cannot question Rushdie’s motives. Anyway, there is a greater issue.

In the early history of Islam, a group of Muslims began to denounce the first three Caliphs as usurpers, and accused Ayesha of conspiracy and worse; some of them even suggested that there had been deletions in the Qur’an. Other Muslims persecuted them. The two groups still hold to their separate views, but after much killing and conflict have learned to live with each other. Similarly, while the vast majority of Muslims insisted on the transcendence of God, a small group found greater joy in God’s immanence; they sought to unite with Him; one of them even boldly shouted “I am the Truth.” Many of them were severely punished; the one who made the bold claim was crucified. But over the centuries the two groups learned to accept each other. Now, in these troubled times of ours, a man for whom the God of his tradition is dead but its historical prophet very much alive, has tried to imagine a life of the soul incorporating the latter but independent of the first. What should be done to him? What will be done to him? How will History judge us in its course?

The Prophet of Islam was very clear in his mind as to which of his acts and words were “prophetic,” and which “human.” Once, he gave someone advice concerning horticulture which turned out to be wrong; he accepted his mistake, and told the man that he was not infallible in mundane matters. Ordinary Muslims, however, see him as almost divine, not just free of any sin but devoid of any human weakness at all. The common Muslim in South Asia does not get his idea of the Prophet from learned texts; he gets it from themaulood sermons and popular texts that celebrate the Prophet’s birth. He learns about the orphan boy who grew up to receive prophethood, who suffered greatly at the hands of his enemies but never took revenge, who bore ridicule and public humiliation without raising a hand to defend himself. The ordinary Muslim vows in his heart to defend that gentle soul with all the force at his command. That’s why it is so easy to arouse him in the Prophet’s name.

I learned about the Prophet from my grandmother, who also had me read to her some of her favourite books. She told me that when the Prophet returned to Mecca in triumph he forgave all his former enemies. Now, as an adult, I read the earliest available biography of the Prophet, written of course by a Muslim. It confirms what my grandmother had told me, but it also adds that a few people were in fact ordered by the Prophet to be killed, including two or three poets, one of whom was a woman. Does this take anything away from his larger act of magnanimity? It does not. In fact it underscores his generosity by bringing it within human dimensions. Now forgiveness becomes something possible for ordinary mortals like us.

C.M. Naim is Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago. This presentation was given at a forum at University of Chicago twenty years back on 10th March 1989 after a fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie. Outlook Magazine also republished this article recently at their website.

Photo: Salman Rushdie

Advertisement: A Muslim among non-Muslims

As another election to the parliament in India approaches, the question comes up “What are Indian Muslims Thinking? What are the issues on the basis of which they will vote for various parties? Are their issues the same as those of other Indians or do they have some distinct issues of their own?

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

Advertisement: A Muslim among non-Muslims

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

Advertisement: A Muslim among non-Muslims

The ulama in medieval ages had broadly divided the world into two categories: Darul Islam and Darul Harb i.e. abode of Islam and abode of war. In those days there was no democracy and there were monarchs and autocrats everywhere. There was no concept of citizenship but the ruled were treated as subjects. Where monarchs or sultans were ruling those regions were called Darul Islam and where non-Muslim monarchs ruled and persecuted Muslims, those regions were called Darul Harb i.e. abode of war.

Let us remember this division in Darul Islam and Darul harb was done by the ulama, not by the Qur’an or by the Prophet. The Qur’an divided people into three categories i.e. Muslims, ahl-al-kitab (those who had revealed scripture with them) and kafirs and mushriks (polytheists) who possessed no scripture for their guidance nor they believed in any formal religion. Qur’an or the Prophet (did not divide the world as such into Darul Islam or Darul Harb.

Mr. Singhal, the International President of VHP has demanded from Indian Muslims that they declare India as Darul Aman i.e. abode of peace which is neither Darul Islam nor Darul Harb. One can only regret at the lack of knowledge on the part of Shri Singhal or he has been misinformed by some of his informants. The Ulama in India has never considered India as Darul Harb except for a short period during the British rule. Even then the ulama and Muslim leaders were divided.

Shah Abdul Aziz, son of illustrious Alim Shah Waliyullah and himself a great Alim, had declared India Darul Aman during British period and issued a fatwa that Muslims could serve in the British army. Also, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his followers never considered India as Darul Harb. As there is no church in Islam different ulama can have different opinions on any issue.

In fact India was never declared Darul Harb and Deoband ulama declared it Darul Harb only during Khilafat agitation when many of them migrated to Afghanistan and set up there a provisional government under the leadership of Raja Mahindra Pratap. Mahindra Pratap was president and Maulana Ubaidullah Singhi was prime minister of this transitional government. It was then that India was declared as Darul Harb and it was made obligatory for Muslims to migrate to Darul Islam i.e. Afghanistan as a Muslim king was ruling there and wage jihad against the British Government.

However, it was politically immature decision and it proved to be great disaster as the King of Afghanistan drove away these Indian Muslims under pressure from the British Government and thousands perished while trying to flee to Central Asian region. Except for this brief period India was never declared as Darul Harb.

Also, it is necessary to understand that these categories were evolved by the ulama during medieval period and does not apply in modern democracies. Even USA under the Bush government was not declared by ulama as Darul Harb through it had invaded two Muslim countries and was aiding and abetting Israel vis-a –vis Israel as United States also treats Muslims as citizens and fully guarantees their political and religious rights.

These medieval categories evolved by the ulama of that time no more apply to the modern democratic world. Let alone India, no other country today qualify for Darul Harb. Even Israel may not qualify as Darul Harb for many as the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel have also been given rights as citizens of Israel. Mr. Singhal should check his facts before writing such letters.

He has also demanded that Hindus be declared as not being kafirs. If Mr. Singhal carefully studies Muslim literature in India he would get to know that many sufi saints like Dara Shikoh, Mazhar Jani Janan and others considered Hindus as ahl-al-kitab i.e. people of the book like Jews and Christians. Mazhar Jani Janan has made many interesting observations in this respect in one of his letters to his disciple who had asked Jani Janan whether Hindus could be declared as kafirs.

Mazhar Jani Janan said in his letter that Hindus cannot be treated as kafirs as kafirs are those who hide the truth and Hindus possess scriptures like Vedas with revealed Truth from Allah. Also, he observed Hindus believe in tawhid i.e. one God as Ishwar in Hindu tradition is Nirgun and Nirankar i.e. without attributes and without any shape which is the highest concept of tawhid.

Not only this he also said that in Qur’an Allah has said that he has sent His prophets to all the nations and so how can he forget India. He must have sent prophets to India also and may be Ram and Krishna, highly revered religious personalities might have been prophets of Allah. Other sufi saints also have opined that Allah must have sent his prophets to Hindustan as Muslims believe Allah has sent in all one lakh and twenty four thousand prophets and Qur’an has not given all the names any way.

Buddha was also accepted prophet of God by many Muslim scholars and a book on him Buzasaf (translated into Arabic and Persian) was quite a popular reading in Muslim houses until my childhood. Iqbal also describes Ram as Imam-e-Hind i.e. Imam of India, highest tribute any Muslim could pay to Ram. And any way even if some people consider Hindu as kafirs Qur’an permits Muslims to peacefully coexist with kafirs (see chapter 109).

It permits war against only those kafirs who fight and persecute Muslims, not all kafirs. It is great misunderstanding created by either some extremists among Muslims or among non-Muslims that Muslims cannot coexist peacefully with kafirs. In fact ulama have divided kafirs into two categories harbi and ghayr -harbi kafirs i.e. war monger and non war monger kafirs. As for non-war mongering kafirs it is duty of Muslims to coexist with them.

It was heartening that Jami’at al-Ulama-i-Hind immediately replied to Shri Singhal’s letter and declared that India has always been Darul Aman except for a short period of British rule. They also issued clarification about kafirs. It is also must be noted that The Deobandi Ulama never supported Jinnah’s two nation theory and strongly refuted it and supported the concept of united nationalism. Not only this Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, the then President of Jami’at wrote a book Muttahida Qaumiyyat Aur Islam.i.e. United nationalism and Islam. All Muslims in India since partition have stood by the concept of united and secular nationalism. Even partition was supported by a small minority of Muslims, not more than 5 per cent.

It is unfortunately the Sangh Parivar which still talks of Hindu Rashtra and wants Indian Constitution to be amended and its secular character removed in favour of Hindu Rashtra. In fact all secular citizens of India – Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Parsis and Sikhs should write to Mr. Singhal demanding that he refute the concept of Hindu Rashtra and come clean on this.

They can also demand from Mr. Singhal that he guarantee all Muslims and Christians safe and secure life as it is members of his parivar who kill members of minority communities. Two thousand Muslims in Gujarat and more than 40 Christians in Orissa were brutally done to death. And this is just two riots. Hundreds of such riots have taken place in post-independence India and Muslims hardly feel secure and now Christians have also joined their ranks.

Also, in secular democracy like India every one has right to live unconditionally. Perhaps Shri Singhal has never believed in secular democratic culture and hence he wants to lay down conditions for minorities to live in India. Entire Sangh Parivar has been doing this and is becoming of late shriller in this respect. No one can stipulate conditions for anyone to live in secular democratic India except that everyone will abide by the law of the land and if they violate the law they will be punished in keeping with the law of the land. Even a lawbreaker cannot be deprived of his citizenship, only can be punished.

India has always been plural and diverse and pluralism and diversity has been great strength of India. Indian people have been most tolerant except handful of extremists in modern times. It is the British rulers who divided us and created, for the first time, a political category called communalism. We had never known this phenomenon before. Now a section of Indian politicians is exploiting this category for their own political survival.

Let me once again reiterate for Shri Singhal that Muslims and other minorities have always considered India as Darul Aman and all of them have strong sense of loyalty to this great country which is their only homeland. They would never dither from this position. And this author strongly believes that all human beings, whatever their religious beliefs or cultural values, should coexist in peace and harmony. Our politics should never be based on religion, caste or language. It should be based only on our common problems. Unfortunately our politicians are using all these categories (religion, caste and language) for their petty political interests and destroying our unity. People of India should categorically reject such politics.
—————————————————–
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Mumbai.
E-mail: csss@mtnl.net.in

Photo: Sikkim, India

Advertisement: A Muslim among non-Muslims