It is no secret that today India’s Muslims need much help from the Community’s major organizations and parties to lobby with the government, political parties and the power structure to develop and implement programs to uplift the much depressed and backward Muslims. There are about a half dozen such organizations of Muslims in India that are more than fifty years old, that have much credibility with the Muslims as well as the government, the majority Hindu community, media and the nation’s power structure. Over the years India’s major political parties have sought help from these organizations in successive elections.
Thus when the average Muslims in India hear of intense turmoil, infighting and cut-throat power struggle in the top leadership of these organizations, which shocks them. Such turmoil also reveals some basic structural problems in these venerable and respected organizations. Some of the problems that have come to the surface are: certain family’s dynastic stranglehold on these organizations; certain individual’s dictatorial control on these organizations; inability of the ordinary members of these organizations to rise to the top leadership on the basis of merit and service.
In the last few years we have watched at least four major Muslim organizations of Muslims in India go through serious turmoil. The Muslim Majlis Mashawarat of New Delhi experienced turmoil about two years ago in which a segment of Mashawarat split from the parent body and formed a separate organization laying claim to the parent Mashawarat. Majlis Ittihad Muslameen (MIM), Hyderabad, experienced major problem a few years ago when in 1993 a section of MIM broke away to form the Majlis Bachao Tahreek. Now we see the venerable Jamiat ul Ulema Hind, New Delhi, split due to intense power struggle between its President and General Secretary. A decade ago Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) split and the splinter segment formed the Indian National League.
In the case of Mashawarat, those who broke away are people of credibility, with the media reporting that they were encouraged by some Muslim politicians from South India who were being stymied by North Indian Muslim leaders from the top rungs of the organization’s leadership.
In the case of MIM the stranglehold of the Owaisi family on the organization for three generations, and their domination of the top rungs of MIM leadership is cited as the reason for the turmoil in MIM. Currently one Owaisi is an MIM member of parliament and another is a member of Andhra Pradesh Assembly representing MIM. Their father Salahuddin Owaisi was the long time MIM President and member of parliament from Hyderabad, who ensured that his various sons became top leaders of MIM in their young age. And their grandfather was a long time head of MIM. In fact the resentment of this dynastic control of MIM has become so serious that Hyderabad’s major Urdu newspaper Siasat is openly building opposition to MIM in the community in Hyderabad city. The Majlis Bachao Tahrik accused MIM of not being orthodox enough in defending the religious rights of Muslims. That resulted in MIM adopting several uncalled for sectarian programs. Some recent instances are: Physical attacks in public on Tasleema Nasreen, and public agitation forcing the government to ban the showing of the movie “The Messengar” on the life of prophet Mohammad in movie houses in Hyderabad.
In the case of Jamiat ul Ulema, again the source of the problem is the stranglehold of the Madani family on Jamiat’s top leadership for three generations. About 90 years ago Maulana Husain Madani was among the founders of Jamiat who reigned as its President for many years. He was succeeded by his son Maulana Asad Madani as the Head of Jamiat for many years. Asad Madani who died last year ensured in his lifetime that his brother and various sons acquired top leadership positions in Jamiat. After his death his brother Arshad Madani became the President and his son Mahmood Madani became the General Secretary of Jamiat. Since then the Madani uncle and nephew have been involved in cut-throat power struggle to become the sole power in Jamiat. That led to the recent fireworks and split of Jamiat itself.
About ten years ago the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) whose following is largely in Kerala and Tamil Nadu experienced a similar blowup in its top leadership. That resulted in a split in IUML and the formation of the Indian National League led by Sulaiman Sait, who had earlier declined to relinquish his long running Presidency of IUML.
Such turmoil in the top rungs of India’s major Muslim organizations greatly demoralizes rank and file members of these organizations. It creates much loss of credibility, loss of following in the community and their ability to represent the Muslim community and negotiate on behalf of the community on the serious issues of the community. The net looser is the entire Muslim community in India whose interests are seriously harmed by such dogfights among the top leaders. Today introspection and internal reforms in the working of the major organizations of Muslims in India are a pressing need to prevent destructive bickering and division that can spread in the community itself.
It appears that bringing more internal democracy in the Muslim organizations and doing away with the dynastic control of the organizations by certain families can go a long way in removing the buildup of internal frustrations that result in periodic blowups. Another useful step will be term limits for the heads of these organizations, and doing away with too much power in the hands of the Head of the organization.
Photo: Mahmood MadaniÂÂ
You make a lot of sense friend. Such in-fighting in political bodies representing a significant section must be demoralizing. But there is one thing to be mentioned, the lack of respected representatives in politics for Muslims is more than made up by brilliant representatives of the Muslim community in other public areas such as entertainment, media and sports. Just to name a few, Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Amir, Irfan Pathan and our ex-president Dr. Abdul Kalam and so many others. These people have the respect of each and every Indian and all outsiders as well. They are not just model Muslims, but model Indians and even more important model Human Beings. (As in achievers and moral humanitarians as well)…….. I personally am very thankful that there are such men in our society whom we can look up to…
Kaleem,
Very Good Article…have to acknowledge that it was very complete in the sense….it first explains the problem, analyzes the cause for it and then offers a solution.
all 3 parts are very accurate.
I wonder why there is need for a Hindu or a Muslim organisation to lift the respective community. And as we are aware that each inndividual muslim is self governed in religious matter and is responsible for him/her -self, the role of these religious organisations is seminal and director. We need not be panicky as Kwaja sounds. The least written about them better. We do not get to know more about Hindu and Christian organisations though there is a lot of money as well as population. Alarmist calls make people more defined as far as divisions are concerned. Here are people who ask the role of AIMPB etc and scrutinise there role, these two contradictory approach is illogical. It we feel the are of no conseuence and ask for no money, why to bother. If we feel they should behave, we need to bahave first in recognising their importance. Atleat Mr Kwaja has stressed upon their importance.
While Muslims are self-governed in religious matters, most Muslims including the well educated ones have only a rudimentary knowledge of Quran and Hadith and almost no knowledge of Islamic Fiqh. Hence the need for organizations that provide a body of scholars who enlighten Muslims with details of their faith. One of the most important things is that Muslims need to understand Islam properly.
Besides viable Muslim organizations like MIM or Jamiat ul ulema are needed to bring about social and political emancipation of the Muslim community. For instance in India’s freedom struggle Jamiat played a very significant role in supporting Gandhi and in opposing the partition of India. Similarly MIM played an important role in re-building the morale of Hyderabad Muslims after the 1948 “Police Action” . Even in US such religion based organizations (eg Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Catholic Union, organizations of Baptists, Methodists etc) exist that are much involved in the society. These are not churches.
Hindu organizations like ‘Muths’ also occassionally go through controversies and their Shankracharyas get involved in leadership disputes. The Indian media does report it.
When the 90 year old very respected Jamiat ul Ulema becomes a victim of “Chacha-Bhatija’ (uncle-nephew) cut-throat politics for naked power grab; when for 3 generations Jamiat is under the dynastic control of the Madani family; when younger Madani family members are catapulted over senior leaders in the Jamiat’s leadership, then it is a cause for much concern for the Muslim community. The community can not leave it alone as the Madani’s personal family quarrel.
What do you know about MIM ? I think you know only Owaisi family and present stand of urdu newspapers. These newspaper were given importance to Owaisi news in order to bring their sales and advertisement. Owaisi is familiar not for their family but for their hard work, they used to stand like iron man, even in mid night. After MIM introduction of their newspaper these newspapers were gone mad and started their campaing against MIM and now supporting communist ?
The critics of MIM have applied all the options to bring down the MIM in Hyderabad, but the strong Muslim Unity in Hyderabad is really unique. The only option left for these critics to break the unity of Muslim in Hyderabad, so they opted for these option, than the time will show MIM prevail by support of Muslim Unity in Hyderabad or the critics will succeed in breaking the unity ?
I enjoyed reading the article and the comments on this blog.
I have a problem though when religion and politics are intertwined. Probably this is one of the strength, or weakness, of South Asian polity, depending on how you view it. In my opinion religion’s only purpose is to serve the individual achieve his long term spiritual goal. How does one do this? Religion, like all else in life, has its own primary education of rituals, which are further re-inforced by the secondary education in mythology. Eventually each one, depending on his/ her personal motivation, must go through the university education of philosophy, if the final goal of understanding the Unity of all Creation has to be understood, which is the essence of each religion. Practiced religions differ on rituals and mythology but are very similar when it comes to philosophy. Philosphy is the most important part of religion and helps each individual evolve as per his own understanding. Once you reach the summit and look down you will find any number of paths, both charted and uncharted, to reach the summit. All paths will finally reach the summit if you keep on climbing. Each individual has his own perception of his Creator, irrespective of his religion. Even in the same religion, we may follow the same rituals and may have been fed on the same mythology, we still would have our own perception of the Creator in our brain/ mind, which will be different from every one else. Rituals and mythology provide us humans the basis to develop the faith to go onto bigger things in the spiritual field. Rituals and mythology are taught/ learnt through pandits/ mullahs/ granthis/ priests. They would in all probability be inadequate guides to make you progress in the Doctorate of spiritualism. We need to understand this important difference – a primary or secondary school teacher cannot guide me at the Doctoral stage. Some one who has ‘been there/ done that’ can at best show me the way. The trudging has still got to be done by the individual. This is the spiritual realm and has nothing to do with politics and democracy.
Politics on the other hand has to do with our needs to live a purposeful and fulfilling life in the physical world. Human needs are common, irrespective of religion. We all need certain facilities, freedoms, laws that can fairly regulate our rights and responsibilities, and the like. Any good politician, irrespective of religion, should be able to provide us with all this in a democracy, as long as we can hold him accountable, as in the West. However, in South Asia vote banks are created on the basis of religion, caste etc. and this does not help anyone but the politician and his coterie. The only way out, I believe, is through separation of the physical world of politics from the spiritual world of religion. Education and strengthening of our democratic institutions are probably the only answer. Indians, of any caste or religion, need to understand this basic fact. Once this happens there will be no majority/ minority vote bank to woo and politicians would hopefully concentrate on providing good governance.
Muslims must take to Education in a big way. They must get addicted to “Secular Education” in a big way. There is no other way. Math, Physics, Sciences, Social Sciences have no religion. There is no theological hair-splitting here. I want Muslims take to Math ! Theology discussions can be held later !
Muslims must establish Schools and teach their kids. There is no other alternative. Educate or Perish. It has come to that. If they have decided for the latter (Perish), then no one can halp.
That world-set has to change. Dont blame the Madrasas (only 4% Muslim kids go to them)., or the Maulanas. They are doing their job. These days one doesnt listen to his father/mother… so the bluff that muslims follow maulanas/madrasas needs to be called off.
Muslims need peace on the ground (RSS wont give them that luxury) and education to come out of the dark tunnel.
its a verey good article, kaleem kawajabhai have a sharp perspective on indian muslim leadership.