Muslim India

Friday, September 05, 2008

Ghulam Muhammed’s Rejoinder (embedded in blue italic text) to:

Islamism is the main threat to India

By Tavleen Singh

(Published in Afternoon Despatch & Courier, Mumbai, on Friday, September 05, 2008)

Nothing is more important in today’s world than a public debate on the growing threat of Islamism and its evil cult of death and destruction. It is a huge problem not just for us on the Indian subcontinent but in the whole world; so I am happy to talk about it any chance I get. And, because most Indian columnists are too politically correct to discuss the problem I get labeled anti-Muslim.

(You are merely parroting the neo-con Jewish line that they have fed to the western media. Islamism and terrorism were non-existent from world public discourse when the US-backed the so-called gullible ‘Jihadis’ were fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

Once US realised that Mulla Omar, who defeated the other two fighting forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmed Masood in a long drawn civil war and became the head of Taliban government of Afghanistan, was not willing to yield to their demands to allow oil pipeline project of UNOCAL to pass through his conquered territory, the US completely changed its strategy and resolved to throw out Taliban. As is the classis pattern developed by US and Israeli Zionists, before physically attacking and invading a country, they organise massive demonising propaganda against their target. They did it against Soviet Russia, when US President branded it as an ‘evil empire’. Taliban leader, Mulla Omar had visited US for negotiations with the US over pipeline project. But the negotiations fell through and Taliban became the no. one enemy of the ‘free world’.

If you know the whole scenario and are still brainwashed by US and Zionist propaganda, and willing to echo ‘his master’s voice’ by raising the bogey of Islamic ideology and terrorism, then you cannot escape being called a gullible soul.

It is people like you that fudge the difference between US/Israeli hegemonical worldview and an independent freedom loving secular democratic worldview, that fight phantom wars .Have gun will fight, have pen will write. They fail to exercise their own intelligence to judge the issues and events and feel cozy wrapped up in their cocoons of ignorance.

Islamism, even if at all be called an ideology driven political doctrine to conquer the world, how does that differ from several other world hegemonic doctrines? Why for India and you personally, a communist world, or a Zionist world or a Christian world order or even a Ram Rajya, is not a threat but Islam is the main threat?

Besides, in India, all religions and ideologies are free to profess and propagate as per freedoms guaranteed by our constitution. So by what yardstick you are discriminating against Islam.

If you are against Islam as a religion, and believe that religion should not enter public domain, how can you explain such a heavy intrusion of Hindu culture and mythology in state affairs so overwhelmingly dominating Indian polity, without any body declaring it as a main threat to India?

I would like to paraphrase your headline. In fact, it is bigotry that is the main threat to India.)

A debatable heritage

I bring up the subject this week because of a letter I received in response to my column last week on the death of the poet Ahmed Faraz.

The gist of that piece was that it was tragic that sixty years after independence we remained so colonized that Indians writing in English got all the credit and recognition while our best writers wrote in Indian languages and remained un-translated and ignored. Personally, I thought it was harmless bit of musing but it provoked a correspondent by name of Ghulam Muhammed to accuse me of not acknowledging Urdu as an Indian language. It was a bizarre conclusion for him to draw since nearly every writer I mentioned wrote in Urdu.

But, Ghulam Muhammed’s main purpose in writing his letter was to charge me with causing damage to ‘the Hindu-Muslim unity of the nation by her (my) warped line of communal writings’.

Happy to engage him I wrote back saying it was he who was guilty of communalism because he sought to link Urdu with Islam. It is because Pakistan did this when came into being that Urdu was replaced by Hindi in India and not given the importance it should have been except in Bollywood where it remains till today the language of Hindi cinema. It has been given renewed life by Hindi television channels who long ago abandoned AIR ‘shudh’ Hindi for Hindustani.

(Once Indian leaders agreed to the division of the country, why should they care how Pakistan is organising itself? Since Pakistan became an independent state, they had every right to claim Urdu or Punjabi, Bengali, Sindhi, Pashto, Baluchi, as their national language. They chose Urdu for its wider acceptance. Where does religion come into the picture?

The main question for India that should concern us as Indian is, that once India had declared itself to be secular, how can it brand one of its own languages to be as non-secular or religious. India has no right to be communal on the pretext that Pakistan had become communal.

Besides, it is a historical record that Urdu lost to a casting vote by a person, less committed to secularism. Why Indian Muslims should be blamed for turning Urdu into something religious. It is the Hindus who forsake Urdu on communal grounds.)


But, it was not the piece about Urdu; it is about my ‘communal writings’. Ghulam Muhammed responded to my letter by writing a long, insulting letter which he circulated by –mail to everyone he knows.

It is too long to reproduce here but contact ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com and I am sure he will send you a copy. He charges me with demonizing Muslims, while not speaking out against the ‘violence of the Hindutva kind’, of using my ‘poison pen’ to ‘succour and sustain the communalism of the majority’ and an ‘obsessive hatred of Muslims’.

It is journalists like me he says who will be responsible for the ‘disintegration of India’.

(I stand by my stand.)

These charges are made all over the world against anyone who dares raise their voice against Islamism. Writers far more famous than I have been killed for daring to speak out and some like Ayaan Hirsi Ali have been forced into permanent hiding because of their courageous stand against Islamism. Meanwhile, the popularity of Islamism among supposed moderate Muslims all over the world continues to grow as can be seen from the change in Islam that has come about in formerly liberal Islamic countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.

(Revival of religious fervor is directly related to world demonisation of Islam and Muslims after 9/11; which itself is widely reported to be an inside job. Muslims have every right to raise their voices against uncalled for and undeserved demonisation. Even overwhelming moderate majority of Muslims have now come to realise that anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim propaganda is political and ideological driven and are more vocal protestors against such Goebbellian propaganda. It is this backlash that has radicalize even liberal Islamic countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.)

Unwelcome change

In India we see the change everywhere. Liberal, moderate schools of Islamic thinking are losing the battle to those of the Darul Uloom variety who remain mired in the 7th century Arabia. Anyone who doubts this need to make a quick trip to the Darul Uloom’s headquarters in Deoband and see what it looks like and the kind of Islam it preaches to its students. It was the ideology preached at Deoband that gave birth to nasty organisation like SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India). There are those who defend SIMI on the grounds that the allegations of terrorism against their member remain unproven. Perhaps. But, what about their ideology that is based on the principle that the values of Islam have to be imposed on India and that such values that India cherishes like secularism and democracy are nonsense. Surely it is this kind of ideology that produces evil cowards who wander about the country killing innocent people in the name of Allah.

(Your charges against Darul Uloom and SIMI are baseless. Darul Uloom has been teaching the same Dars e Nizami syllabus since its inception over more than a century ago. It is the same teachings that motivated Darul Uloom elders to oppose the establishment of Pakistan. Nobody can deny except the ignorant, that Darul Uloom was in the forefront of India’s unity and it backed Indian National Congress to the fullest. How the same Darul Uloom now has become ‘the hotbed of terrorism’. Isn’t this the US propaganda that gullible scribes in India are slavishly following?

The connection between Taliban and Darul Uloom is most outlandish. When US had to fight young generation of the Afghan refugees that had fled to Pakistan during Afghanistan’s war against the occupying Soviet forces, they chose the common linkages in the syllabus that the Taliban had been taught in to denigrate all madrasas. Such stupid linkages can only convince either the ignorant or the bigots to believe that fault lies with Islamic teachings and not with the US forces invading a foreign country on false pretexts. Even after so many years, if Indian journalists are still harping the same old tune, without using their own independent judgment and intellect, it exposes their utmost ignorance and herd mentality.

The case of SIMI is still another example of dimwit commentators ignoring the state’s propaganda and demonising of Muslims, that had invented an enemy and indulging in their sadistic criminalities. Perfectly innocent people are arrested and tortured and the so-called liberals and secularists are keeping aloof, just because the victims of state terrorism are ‘Muslims’. Isn’t this communalism of the most glaring and obnoxious variety? Where are all human rights organisations? There is strong belief among Muslims that a Zionist advisory is most probable suspect of this copycat strategy to target Muslims in India..)

If saying this is ‘demonising Muslims’, I plead guilty. If stating that religion must stay out of public square is an attack on Islam, then I plead guilty again. Whenever Hindutva has raised its evil head I have attacked it in exactly the same words I use to attack the jihadis. And in the days of Bhindranwale I was among a small handful of journalists who openly opposed the fanatical Sikhism he was preaching. I was put on a hit list for my pains and continue to be on a Hindutva hit list so I must be doing something right.

Anybody who believes that the Islamism is not the main threat to the existence of India as we know it need only examine what has happened in Kashmir. Fifteen years ago the movement for ‘azadi’, was secular and the militancy did not have the hint of jihad in it. Today the ‘secular’ leaders of Kashmir have been forced to follow jihadis who have no hesitation in shouting Islamist slogans in public and making hatred for Hindu India known. They speak openly against ‘Indian culture’ and have turned Kashmir into a place where going to the movies is considered a sin. Islamism works ideologically and through terrorism. It has to be fought at both fronts…

(Before condemning Muslim reaction in Kashmir as well as in India, you must consider if Indian administration had been above board in its dealings with the Muslims. Some disgruntled could have taken to arms, but to treat such outlaws as being Jihadis is an affront to Islam. Unless it is excused as ignorance of Islam, both by the outlaws as well as their detractors.) ■

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September 4th, 2008 5:34 am

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Sarah Palin will be a big success with all her assets. However while she was like a Viagra for the GOP, the 2008 presidential election is already rigged when Dick Cheney sneaked in the dark of the night to Georgia to write a billion dollar check for Saakashvili to drum up trouble on the Russian border, so that Republicans can resurrect the familiar scenario: America in danger and project old war horse McCain as the best man to take care of the new ‘devil’ on the block; Vladimir Putin.

So this time possibly, the focus will be away from Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism. That cow has been milked to its last drop. America’s name all around the world is dirt. So now the new cold war with new screen play had to be stoked with dollops of billion dollars a pop, running up the credit of another trillion dollar worth of war funding. The invisible neo-cons sure know their job, as to how to disappear and raise up stakes in another part of the world.

While poor Obama is collecting 5 dollar each from his internet contacts, Dickey boy has in one stroke raised a billion dollar to run Republican Campaign.

This can only happen in America. While the people are engaged in reality show running to packed auditoriums and millions and millions of TV screens, the underground conspirators are at work to subvert the so-called spectacle of democracy right on the sidelines while the public gaze is away.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

— Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai, India

ONGOING DISCUSSION ON SIMI

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Amaresh Misra misra.amaresh@gmail.com
Date: Sep 1, 2008 3:00 AM
Subject: urgent
To: yusuf5@yahoo.com, yogendra.yadav@gmail.com, ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com, DR MUJAHID GHAZI Ghazi , gautam adhikari , ghosesagarika@gmail.com, gmoonis , shahid_ali_khan@yahoo.com, SHRIKUMAR PODDAR , Shakir Husain , arif durrani , aps khati , Suman Tarafdar , sai@rediff.co.in, Aamir Suhail , akam47@yahoo.com, biju2u@gmail.com, su204 , Shahran Asim , saeed325@hotmail.com, sanjay.verma2@timesgroup.com, randeep ramesh , Arundhati Roy , perwaizjafri@yahoo.com, padmaalva@hotmail.com, parampuri@gmail.com, pjoshi@hindustantimes.com, punyaprasun@gmail.com, Fayyaz Khan , wkhan@optonline.net, webel.susmita@hotmail.com, Ashhar Hashimi , tarun@tehelka.com, Arun Tripathi , Terrie Albano , Rasheed Ahmed , ahmadcameron@yahoo.com, shahid askari , bishmoitra , Bibek Debroy , Crispin Bates , Meenal Baghel , soumya bhattacharya , balmukund.sinha@timesgroup.com, barkha@ndtv.com, Admiral Bhagwat , chawla.48@gmail.com, chitrangada.c@gmail.com, HARI DESAI , diwakar.asthana@timesgroup.com, duleepcmatthai1@dataone.in, eshwar.niwas@gmail.com, editor@urdutimes.net, Editpages , editorinchief@tribuneindia.com, editor@cobrapost.com, gmoonis@yahoo.com, gopalrai1975@rediffmail.com, haiderkazim@gmail.com, hussainanwer786@yahoo.co.in, indrajit hazra , Radio Islam , Mohsin Jamali , ketkarkumar@gmail.com, khalidjk@sify.com, tariq.faizi@gmail.com
SIMI Question: The Political aspect

By Amaresh Misra

This might be considered a delayed response to Shri Yogendra Yadav's last, detailed comment on the SIMI Question. I am on a US lecture tour to promote awareness about Indian history and 1857; the past few days were hectic and I had no time on my hands.
Shri Yadav raises four positions on the SIMI question: The Ghulam Muhammad line, the Amaresh Misra line, the Javed Anand line and the establishment line. Distancing himself from the establishment line, Shri Yadav finds empathy with the Javed Anand line. He says that the Amaresh Misra line improves upon the Ghulam Muhammad line but does not `delink' SIMI from Indian Muslims at large—Shri Yadav broadly believes that innocent Muslims and SIMI sympathizers, are being harassed in SIMI's name even though, as per law, the organization might not have been linked to any terror attacks. He says that we can only fight such harassment, or the secular forces will be more emboldened if secularists distanced themselves from SIMI.
The question is political for Shri Yadav raises the issue of winning the mainstream Hindu population to the secular cause and that this `winning over' will be difficult if secular forces or Muslims welcome the lifting of a ban on SIMI. Now let us make one thing clear: were Muslims or the Urdu media welcoming the lifting the ban on SIMI per se? I guess not—since several innocent Muslims were harassed in SIMI's name, they were welcoming relief for those victims. In fact if you read Urdu editorials carefully, you will find that they have not expressed support for SIMI's ideology—for them SIMI's ideology remains, a non-issue.
Now Shri Yadav might say that this is precisely the point: SIMI's ideology is not a non-issue, if only because mainstream Hindus have a supposed dread of SIMI.
Shri Yogendra Yadav might not realize this—but this is exactly the argument put forward by soft Hindutva or pseudo/weak secular forces: fight Muslim persecution but do not raise the name of the association in whose name Muslim persecution was generated (for fear of a Hindu backlash). The same `backlash specter' is raised when Bal or Raj Thackeray or Narendra Modi or Advani are to be arrested.
The problem is that this is impractical—in a political battle you have to focus on the main enemy—Shri Yadav says that secular forces ought to avoid, the label `pro-Muslim' if they want to win mainstream Hindus over to the secular cause. I pose a counter question: what if secular forces, largely liberal Hindus like Shri Yogendra Yadav, have by and large, under the plea that the RSS will be strengthened, avoided defending civil rights guaranteed to Muslims under the Indian constitution as a minority group?
To me that is the main problem—in the name of delinking SIMI from Indian Muslims Shri Yadav gets his priorities wrong—SIMI's name was never linked with Indian Muslims in the first place—the linkage is an invention of communal forces in India and the Indian security forces. It is a diabolical design to identify all Muslims with SIMI and then persecute them.
So SIMI more or less is an `invention'—the same way in which `the existence of WMDs in Iraq' was a lie and a fraud perpetrated by George Bush and his cohorts on the world, or the `Jewish enemy' was invented by Hitler. You do not fight malicious, fascist stereotypical inventions by `delinking' them from a community—you expose them by pointing out how and why they are inventions and what harm these inventions are going to do.
Indian secularists have to make a choice here—whether you regard `SIMI as a terrorist organization' construct as an `invention'. Many of Mr. Yadav's doubts stem from the concern that what if tomorrow some terror links of SIMI are discovered?
This `what if' line is very dangerous—unconsciously it promotes murder. At the time of the Iraq invasion when the US State and Intelligence agencies were proclaiming for a `fact' that Saddam Hussein has WMDs, Indian `liberals' like Tavleen Singh and the like also insisted that one should not oppose the invasion blindly as there could be some truth in the WMD allegations. The same argument that `mainstream American or the world opinion will be alienated' was given; in the end, what happened? Ultimately the American establishment was proven to be wrong—it's `leftist' and Muslim critics proven right. There were no WMDs in Iraq—so what is now the accountability of those intellectuals who misused their unique position by posing ifs and buts in a clear cut situation where the illegal American invasion had to opposed, without any doubts, simply because it was an evil act.
Of course, these people are intellectuals—so they are spared the burden of accountability—even though their ambivalence ended them making an accomplice in mass murder in Iraq.
I was amongst those who disagreed with Saddam and said so openly—but that did not come in the way of me defending Saddam's legal rights against America. According to Shri Yadav's logic, even if you disagree with SIMI's thinking, you should `delink' yourself from defending it, as that would send a `wrong message'.
Message to—what—the RSS? In fact the opposite is true and I would like Shri Yadav to ponder over this question: that the real `delink' that ought to be made is between the RSS and the Hindus. In a Hindu majority country, the RSS-BJP has never won more than 15-20% of the vote as a single party. The RSS-BJP ought to have won 300 seats in the Indian Parliament at least once; the fact that they did not shows how much they do not represent Hindus.
I do not think even Shri Ghulam Muhammad for once said that SIMI represents the entire Muslims of India. His position is similar to that of mine that you cannot defend an `abuse' by separating the content from the form arbitrarily. SIMI is the `form', the bugbear that has been invented by the communal forces in the Indian State power. You do not `delink' the bugbear—you expose it as a bugbear and how it was used to persecute Muslims.
Muslims have never associated RSS with all Hindus—in fact if you go to Deoband, there is a whole subject on Sanatan Dharma—you might know that Sanatan Dharma is the real religion of Hindus—the four Shankacharyas have condemned the RSS on several occasions and if you ask the Sanatan Dharma religious leaders they too say that SIMI is an invention!
Sanatan Dharma forces were engaged actively in defeating the BJP in the 2004 elections—I know this for a fact as I was part of these campaigns in UP in several constituencies where the BJP lost, was reduced to 10 seats in UP and lost the national mandate. When Golwalkar was alive he had a debate with Swami Swarupanand, the Shankaracharya of Badrinath and Dwarika, in which Golwalkar said that he regards Lord Rama as a `Mahapurush' and not a God. Swarupanand replied that in that case, Golwalkar is close to the position adopted by Ravana—who too refused to believe that Rama is God's incarnation.
Mark the subtle nuances of the Swarupanand-Golwalkar debate—the Shankaracharya is saying early on what he said right after the Mandir movement—that the RSS is atheist and `aadharmik'—RSS as fascists do not believe in the concept of God as a power independent of human will. True religion materializes—gives a concrete form and meaning—to spiritual reality. On the other hand, fascism spiritualizes material reality i.e. it ascribes divine status to a material entity like race, or homeland. In RSS run schools, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh are not worshipped—an abstract concept of the `motherland' is worshipped—this concept has vague territorial boundaries and transforms into a tyrannical monster whose abstract will has to be enforced by force.
Any religion like Islam or Sanatan Dharma, which believes in a formless God existing independent of man's will, reinforces humanism and enlightenment as it tends to take human endeavor towards understanding that formless reality. By contrast, fascist thinking blocks enlightenment as formless reality is not recognized there—instead divinity is ascribed to an abstract but grotesquely distorted and concrete entity like the race or the nation or the motherland.
That is why democracy is the opposite of fascism—the former rests on questions and doubts and celebration of difference in the human quest towards the understanding his or hers relationship with the formless reality—democracy believes that human mastery is never complete. Fascism however marks the `end of history' and the depiction of the State or `Bharat' or a race as an end to itself, as a truth unto itself, as perfection ordained and immutable, something before which the human head should bow down; religion says that man can only bow before the formless God; Muslims are justified therefore in challenging RSS' concept of nationalism—in the latter nation is divine—it is not a man made, civilizational entity. If you recognize nation as a man made, civilizational entity, then you have to recognize Muslim contribution and the like. On the other hand, if the nation is a fixed, complete, divine entity from before—even before the Muslims came, then Muslims obviously have no part to play in the making of that nation. They are outsiders—the `other' which has to be `purged'.
Because Hindus too believe in a formless God (Brahma) they also do not worship the nation and they do not understand when the RSS asks them to do so—that is where Islam and Sanatan Dharma stood shoulder to shoulder in 1857 and they do so now. So Sanatan Dharma Hindus will not be effected or prejudiced against Muslims if SIMI's `invention' is exposed or Muslim persecution is sought to be ended; you do not have to `delink' SIMI and Muslims in order to defend the latter—if you do so, you will fall into the perfect trap set by the fascists.
Hindus are dismayed even more than Muslims because fascists have taken over the media and they project a distorted Hindutva image of Sanatan Dharma. In fact Hindus will support a position that fearlessly questions Muslim demonization in the name of SIMI. For the public at large, SIMI's ideology is an academic question that only diverts attention from the real issues.
I have experience in dealing aggressively with the RSS and winning over even a section of the RSS support base. I hope you are aware of this; I have never had to explain to Hindus that what is SIMI or its ideology—I merely say that this is an `invention' created to divert our attention.
I would again urge you that the Javed Anand's line is a smoke screen, a variant of the Establishment line only. In the light of arguments given above, please consider this—without exposing SIMI as an invention of security/communal forces you will not be able to fight Muslim persecution. The communal forces will trap you in a position where you will have to chuckle and pass over the torture and killing of `Muslims who have SIMI links'. This is what happens in reality—and I am sorry to say, this is where liberals like you fail. I have the experience of fighting for the cause of 1993 Mumbai Bomb Blast accused with the blessings of the Badrinath Shankaracharya. And I was able to extricate several innocent victims out of the mess.
In a letter written to Rajiv Gandhi just after the infamous `shilanyas', which opened the floodgates of communal politics in India, Shri Kamala Pati Tripathi, the Indira Gandhi loyalist and UP's Chief Minister, openly stated that `the only way to fight the RSS was in the streets with Lathis'; and that Rajiv Gandhi is making a huge mistake in giving them leverage in Ayodhya. Shri Tripathi was not a radical—but he was a Sanatan Dharmi; note the aggression in his tone.
In India, often you have to be seen as pro-Muslim in order to fight fascism—this is what your enemy does—you do not have to fear it—Hindus know who is who and what is what; it is the fascist forces who want you to throw away the secular cause, or fight the secular cause `in a certain safe way', who instill the fear that if you will talk about the right of Muslims you will be labeled as pro-Muslim.
Mulayam Singh Yadav did not fall into this trap when he was called Maulana Mulayam by Advani. Nehru did not reply when he was called pro-Muslim.
Please take note…

-- RegardsAmaresh Misra
==============================================
Yogendra Yadav

5:45 am (4 hours ago)

yogendra.yadav@gmail.com

TO: Amaresh Misra


CC: yusuf5@yahoo.com,
ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com,
DR MUJAHID GHAZI Ghazi ,
Gautam adhikari ,
ghosesagarika@gmail.com,
gmoonis ,
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tarun@tehelka.com,
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shahid askari ,
bishmoitra ,
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Sep 3, 2008 5:45 AM
Re: urgent
gmail.com
Amresh ji

Thanks for your response. I really appreciate the tone of this exchange from you. Like the previous pieces, this piece also serves to remind me of how much I share with you, especially your emphasis on sanatana dharma. This latest piece also brings out three very basic differences between our positions:

1. You are convinced that SIMI's terror links are an invention as much as Iraq's WMD were; I am not, for I do not think we have seen enough credible evidence at this stage to be so sure of this judgment.

1A. You think that my agnosticism on this question is dangerous for it can support the evil. I recognise its risk (especially if I do agree with you some time later that SIMI terror link was purely a figment of imagination) but would knowingly opt for this in the present condition of partial information. I fear that the cost of your reading going wrong are so high (as it would then definitely lead to an inescapable link between Indian Muslims and terror) as to be completely unacceptable to me.

1A. You think that without exposing SIMI as an invention of security/communal forces it is not possible to fight Muslim persecution. I believe on the contrary, that it is counter-productive to get into a position on SIMI-terror link if our main purpose is to defend the innocent victims who are being harassed in the name of SIMI.

2. You believe that secularists in India should be prepared to be seen as "pro-Muslim" in order to fight fascism. I believe that secularists should neither be pro-Muslim (or pro-Hindu etc) nor be seen as such. They should simply follow a principled line and be assiduously truthful and take care that they are seen to be doing so. (in this pursuit they are bound to seen as pro-this or pro-that, but that should not deter them). The future of politics of secularism depends to my mind being able to capture this place in public consciousness.

2A. You think that in our context the secular politics should oppose majority communalism while tolerating minority communalism (is this a fair summary? I was not sure and would like to be corrected). I disagree. I believe that while there must be special legal and constitutional safeguard for minorities, there must not be any special concession to minority communalism.

3. You are convinced that the line you are suggesting is not only correct, but is self-evidently so for most ordinary Indians. Your experience tells you that it is enough to just say to your audience that SIMI-terror link is an invention. My experience is no doubt more limited but very different from yours. What I have learnt from my experience is that most ordinary people (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and so on), non-communal by nature, do not accept very easily the arguments that people like you and me put forward, that they suspect us to be partisan, that we need to earn their respect and credibility. If secular politics has to have wider acceptance in our society (in every community, including among Hindus) then it must be able to converse with these ordinary people. (I might add in parentheses that you may have inadvertently misreported my argument on this point. I have nowhere spoken about "winning the mainstream Hindu population"; you may have read someone else's position into mine. I do believe that making secularism acceptable and attractive to the population at large, including but not limited to the mainstream Hindus population, should be the concern of any serious politics of secularism.)

In any dialogue it is something of an achievement to be able to agree on what we disagree upon. I would need to wait for some time, learn more and reflect on this issue before I can take this exchange any further. Allow me to close this exchange with a quote from (who else?) you: "[democracy] rests on questions and doubts and celebration of difference in the human quest ... democracy believes that human mastery is never complete". I sincerely hope that politics of secularism will continue to be democratic in the terms that you describe so powerfully.

Thanks for taking our time during your travel abroad,

Yours

Yogendra Yadav

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

To, The Editor, Afternoon, Mumbai

Apparently TATA in Singhur is a different breed than the TATA of Jamshedpur

Ratan TATA should have paid market price for the land his project required for NANO small car plant. If the new India of liberalisation and globalisation has finally opted to adopt free market economic norms, Ratan Tata's exploitative use of West Bengal's Communist regime's dictatorial mode of governance, has resulted in great injustice to farmers and small landholders in West Bengal.

What kind of industrialisation is this that for supplying the lowest price car to the world at large, poor farmers of Singhur and Nandigram are made to sacrifices not only their subsistence level small farm holdings but their lives too, in brutal armed police and Communist cadre reaction by the West Bengal's Chief Minister shooting down agitating farmers.

Ratan Tata, in best and noble tradition of his Jamshedpur family's social commitments, should have shown deeper commitment to social causes and should have in his Nano car project’s feasibility calculations worked in the cost of rehabilitation of the displaced landholders' economic well being. He could have made all of poor farmers and landholders, shareholder of his project, giving them a stake in the future of not only TATA but in the nation itself. A more than generous purchase settlement would not only had ensure long term security and stability for Nano Car and its ancillary industries, but would have shown a leadership way to introduce new humane version of India’s neo-capitalism.

The ganging up of robber barons, to justify their anti-people policies in amassing wealth for a selected few is saddest part of the whole episode.

Each and every industrialist should have been motivated to reflect more realistically been blinded to the future of the poor and deprived people of India, who have been increasingly impoverished by increasing inflation that has become the hallmark of the expanding economy.

It is regrettable that Ratan Tata has chosen the path of confrontation and blackmail. Whatever may be the real politick of the CPIM and/or Mamta, the basis of the injustice meted out to the people of Singhur and Nandigram, cannot be condoned.

It may be of grave importance to the pluralist India, to know that Muslims formed a sizeable majority of the Singhur and Nandigram’s deprived population and West Bengal’s communist regime had been clearly condemned by Sachar Commission report, for the worst discriminative treatment of the Muslims who formed 28 percent of West Bengal’s population and who have most loyally voted CPIM coalition to a 30 year long stretch of continued rule.

Ratan Tata should rethink the whole project and start with generous rehabilitation of the poor people in West Bengal.


Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com
www.ghulammuhammed.wordpress.com

Exclusion of Muslims

By J. S. Bandukwala

The Prophet of Islam was aware of India, once remarking that there is a fragrant breeze coming from India. Islam reached India almost immediately after his passing away in 632. The long Western coast had trade links with the Arabs, much before the arrival of Islam. The Islamic injunction of fair and honest trading, impressed the local people. Many Arabs settled down in Kerala, marrying local women. Shia Sufis converted many Brahmins and Rajputs in Gujarat. Four hundred years later, invaders came from Central Asia. They were followed by Sufi Syeds from Arab lands, escaping persecution from the Abbasid Caliphs. The most prominent was Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti (1142 – 1236), preaching love of God , combined with equality, brotherhood and concern for the poor. Millions, particularly from the lowest strata of society, responded to his teachings, and that of other Sufis such as Khwaja Bande Nawaz in the South, Nizamuddin Aulia and Baba Farid in the North. The Guru Granth Sahib extensively refers to Baba Farid. The foundation stone of the Golden temple was laid by Mia Mir. Sufism had a tremendous influence on the Bhakti movement, producing such spiritual figures as Guru Nanak, Kabir and Mirabai. Today the Muslim population in South Asia is about 500 million. That is about one third of the world Muslim population. Almost all these Muslims have forefathers of local origin, who converted to Islam. A miniscule are of non South Asian origin. The discrimination against Muslims is rooted primarily in this conversion, mostly from Dalit and backward classes. Six hundred years of Muslim rule widened this gulf. The religious policies of Muslim rulers ranged from the most liberal Akbar to his ultra orthodox great grand son Aurangzeb. Frequently Muslim kings fought Hindu rulers, such as Maharana Pratap and Shivaji. In due course these kingly wars were viewed as religious wars between Muslims and Hindus, widening the communal divide. This historical twist fails to notice that Shivaji’s general was a Muslim, while the Mughal general was a Hindu. But perhaps the most vital factor was the upper caste resentment at the large scale conversion of lower castes into Islam. This is the genesis of the communal hatred we see today. As the Mughal Empire weakened, Muslims comprised a small elite of Nawabs and zamindars. There was no middle class. Most Muslims were economically and socially backward. Conversion to Islam gave them a sense of equality and identity within a larger Muslim world. But it had no effect on their living standards. Islam was superimposed on the caste structure. The Hindu dhobi became a Muslim dhobi. But he still remained a dhobi. The caste structure of Hinduism became the jamaats of Muslims. Marriage was strictly within the jamaats. Often even burial grounds were on jamaat lines. This was against a basic feature of Islam that all Muslims were brothers, as witnessed in the marriage of the Prophet’s cousin Zainab with Zayd, a former slave.The rise of the British saw Muslim elite lose political power. In their resentment they turned their back on anything Western, particularly the English language and science. They clung to a shadowy world of Persian language and culture, and to a princely lifestyle, they could no longer afford. A total lack of vision can be gauzed by their refusal to accept a British offer to open an English medium college. They demanded a Persian medium college. Around this time the British offered Hindus a Sanskrit college. They declined asking for an English medium college. Note the sharp contrasts in their responses. The 1857 mutiny ended Muslim rule. The British, replacing the Mughals, were especially harsh on the Muslims, who reacted by withdrawing further into their shell. Any attempt at an English education was strongly opposed and even declared as un-islamic. The great Sir Syed Ahmed, the founder of Aligarh was vilified and offered a garland of shoes. On the other hand Hindus responded most enthusiastically to Western education. Within a few decades there was a marked contrast between widespread Muslim poverty and decay, and a vibrant Hindu middle class. This Hindu awakening found expression in the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885. But the Muslims largely kept aloof. Sir Syed Ahmed was wary of antagonizing the British. His focus was only on the uplift of the community, and that required building bridges with foreign rulers. The religious divide soon became a political divide, with the partition of Bengal in 1905. Hindus opposed it strongly. Muslims favoured it, reflecting the nature of East Bengal, with Hindu zamindars and Muslim landless. After the First World War, Hindu aspirations for self government were turned down by the British. Resentment, led to harsh measures culminating in the Jalianwala Baug tragedy. This brought Mahatma Gandhi into the national limelight. Sadly this coincided with the British deposing the last Turkish Sultan, who as Khalifa was also the nominal head of the Muslim world. Indian Muslims reacted most strongly to this loss. The khilafat movement was born. Gandhiji sensed an emotional issue that would bring Muslims into the national mainstream. He offered Congress support for Khilafat. The result was a deluge of orthodox maulanas into the Congress, and the exit of its principal liberal figure Jinnah. The later was bitter about his eclipse from national politics. This bitterness contributed years later to the partition of the country. Equally important, Muslim leadership passed into the hands of maulanas, and it has largely remained so ever since. The khilafat movement died within a few years. But the damage had been done. Religion and politics were mixed in a deadly concoction. Moplah riots in Kerala followed, leading to the birth of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS. Inspite of Gandhiji’s attempts to project Sarva Dharma Sadbhav, the two communities drifted apart. The end result was partition, with frightening brutalities and a migration of millions across the borders. Gandhiji’s assassination and Nehru’s stress on science and humanism cooled the communal fires. But this social peace lasted barely fifteen years. With Nehru’s death, and the constant irritants of Pakistan and Kashmir, the Hindu Muslim divide widened once again. Electoral politics, vital to a democracy, was also the incentive to inflame communal passions. Caste politics with the coming of Mandal, threatened the BJP hold on its Hindu vote bank. In response the Ayodhaya movement was launched. The last twenty five years have been most difficult for Indian Muslims. They are under a constant physical threat and mental stress.The situation is particularly grim in a state like Gujarat that has become a laboratory of Hindutva. My own house has been attacked four times, the last time in 2002 it was completely destroyed. My daughter and I just escaped certain death. I have been in prison three times. Post Godhra saw an elected Government sponsor the mass killings of Muslims. This had never happened before in free India. The poison goes beyond Narendra Modi. For years the Gujarati language media, would carry provocative articles against Muslims. Repeated requests to the Press Council to stop this yellow journalism had no effect. Gujarati intellectuals would write long articles on the need to civilize the barbarian trends in the Muslim community. This author made numerous public appeals to persuade top Gujarati religious figures to express remorse for the horrors of 2002, in particular the rape and killing of Muslim women using trishuls, while shouting Jai Shri Ram. There has been no response. Honestly I have often wondered what has happened to this society that once produced a Mahatma. Politically Muslims have no voice in Gujarat. Although the Muslim population in Gujarat is about 10 %, the communal polarization is so deep that it is impossible for a Muslim to win a significant election. With the rise of Hindutva, Gujarat has not elected any Muslim to the Lok Sabha, nor has there been a Muslim Minister in Gujarat. Since the coming to power of Narendra Modi, most Muslim officers have been sidelined. In national perspective, the hatred shown by the Gujarat BJP towards Muslims has poisoned relations between Muslims and the saffron party. All over the country, Muslims tend to vote strategically such that the BJP loses. This has been exploited by other parties to avoid doing anything substantial for Muslims, other than talk about protecting them from the BJP. The Islamophobia of the BJP has hurt Muslims tremendously. It also puts a brake on BJP winning elections. More important it damages the democratic basis of ourcountry. The situation could have been rectified substantially if the lower judiciary in Gujarat had been just and fair. Sadly case and after case against those accused in the post Godhra riots were thrown out, due to a deliberate sloppy police investigation, combined with Public Prosecutors appointed from the VHP. Even so notorious a person as Babu Bajrangi, who in a TV sting operation confessed to having slashed the pregnant Kauserbanu, to kill both the unborn and the mother, was granted bail by a High Court Judge. Later this same Judge was appointed on the Nanavati Commission to examine the causes of the riots. How can we have any faith in such a Judge? On the other hand the draconian POTA law was applied on about 270 people in Gujarat. Of these 269 were Muslims. Those arrested for the Sabarmati train burning, are languishing in jail for the past six years. The Government case is so weak, that it deliberately delays bringing it before a Court of law. Since the expiry of this law, the Gujarat Government has passed another POTA type Bill, which has not so far been signed by the President. It is called GUJCOC. It allows any confession made before the police as admissible before a Court of law. With the strong anti Muslim bias of the police force, one can well imagine the third degree methods that will be used to force any confession desired by the authorities. I just hope the President withholds his consent to this Bill.The recent Ahmedabad blasts have been tragic. In Islam terrorism is strongly condemned in Surahs 5, 6, 17 and 25 of the Quran. Life is given by the Creator and it is sacred and no individual has a right, to take it away, except in the course of justice. To kill an innocent is a sin that will deserve double punishment from Allah. Tragically many victims of 2002 are filled with burning revenge. I urge these youth to look for justice in the majesty of Allah. But they must never hurt innocents.History tends to divide. Geography forces us to unite. 150 million Muslims are spread over every state, district and taluka of this country. There is no alternative but to live in communal harmony with our 800 million Hindu brothers. Muslims must play their part in making a success of the idea of India. After all which country in the world can claim a Father of the Nation who laid his life for its minorities? Muslims must realize that all Hindus are not supporters of the RSS. India is secular because of these Hindus. We must do everything possible to win their goodwill. Without diluting our roots in Islam, we must make adjustments in our world view and our own life styles. One sad aspect is the decline in Sufi beliefs among Muslims. Sufism enabled a reconciliation of different philosophical and religious tenets in India. It brought Muslims closer to Hindus. Under increasing threat from Hindutva, Muslims have sought to reassert their distinct identity in appearance. They are also moving away from Sufism. In the process they are distancing themselves from those non RSS Hindus, whose friendship is essential for their own welfare. This may damage secularism in the country, and ultimately hurt the Muslims of India. Muslims must emulate the gentler, warmer and nobler nature of the Holy Prophet: his integrity, his simplicity, his laughter with children, and his concern for women, the old and the sick. Somehow we have drifted away from the life of the Prophet. A society is judged by how it treats its women. Muslim men have not realized the psychological damage the practice of triple talaq does to women. It is a sword that hangs over every woman. The Quran refers to talaq in (2,226 / 232) and also (65, 1/ 7), with the clear stipulation that the process be spread over a period of about four months. This is to prevent any misuse by anger or pettiness. There is no mention at all of instant triple talaq. The Quran directs the husband to treat his divorced wife with dignity, honour and kindness. Horribly women are divorced on the telephone, or in a drunken state, or for not cooking the right type of meal. Tragically it is considered valid by our Muftis.

This is wrong in religion. It is also against all the tenets of human rights, and we must condemn the same. Similarly polygamy is mentioned in the Quran (4, 3) wherein a man is allowed to marry up to four wives. But it stipulates that they must all be treated just and fair. The very next sentence says that even if you try to be just, you will not be able to do so. This implies monogamy is the rule in Islam. Polygamy is permitted only under extreme conditions. In Islam a child is conceived when an egg meets the sperm. Allah gives it a soul. Hence Islam treats abortion as murder. But coitus interruptus was sanctioned by the Prophet. This method just stops the egg meeting the sperm. Then why do we oppose family planning, when it does the same work? Hindutva has led to the impossibility of Muslims finding residential accommodation in most Hindu areas. This is very true of Gujarat. Strangely it is also true in cosmopolitan cities like Mumbai. The result is a ghettoisation, with Muslims forced to live in highly congested areas, with poor water supply, drainage disposal, bad roads and equally shabby public transport. I would urge Muslims not to complain. They should plan and develop their own areas such that essential facilities are provided. If necessary use community funds. Trees must be planted and properly watered. Cleanliness must be maintained. They must learn to use their electoral power to secure these rights. As an example the Juhapura locality in Ahmedabad has about 3 lakh Muslims, most of them migrants from riot prone parts of the city. Juhapura had no banks, as it was classified as a ‘negative rating’ by bureaucrats. We fought this issue for years, up to the level of the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and the RBI. Friendly members of Parliament were persuaded to ask questions on the subject. Finally we succeeded.Quality education is the highest priority of Muslims. That implies stress on English, Maths and Science. There has been a sharp rise in the number of Muslim students attending schools and college. Our focus must be on professional courses, such as engineering, management and medicine. That is the only way the Muslim community can come out of its present miserable state. I am totally against any form of reservation, which is ultimately a crutch that hurts the sound healthy evolution of a society. I am horrified at the mad rush for ‘backwardness’, and I pray my community avoids that pitfall. At this stage it is best that Muslims stay away from power politics. The experience of the last sixty years is that Muslim leaders, who join political parties, do gain at a personal level. We have had Muslim Presidents, Vice Presidents, Cabinet Ministers and Governors. Sadly they are so scared of being branded communal that they just completely avoid the community. Muslims must treat the vote as a sacred power, and use it wisely and hopefully for the best candidate. That requires that the BJP come out of its hate Muslim politics. Hopefully that day will dawn. That will be the highest tribute they can pay to Gandhi who laid his life so we can usher in the idea of India.