[nukkad] Sage advice of a congress muslim scholar

["Mahesh chandra gupta" <>]

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Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young. 
-Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, literary critic (1804-1869)
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Here is a cut-paste from Rediff News today. Worth reading.

MC Gupta
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 From Rediff news 17 Dec. 2002


Arvind Lavakare

A Muslim scholar's bombshell


Irrespective of whether Godhra impacted the result of last week's 
Gujarat assembly poll, post Godhra happenings have moved a 
well-known Muslim scholar of India to facilitate an earthquake in 
his community.
In his latest book Communal Rage in Secular India (Popular 
Prakashan, Mumbai), Dr Rafiq Zakaria first uses Amartya Sen's 
foreword and English language media reports to 'show' the Muslim 
sufferings of early March this year but later, instead of 
appealing to the Hindu's 'tolerance' (as might have been expected 
of a veteran Congressman) or whining about secularism (of its 
pseudo practitioners), Zakaria drops an anti-climatic bombshell in 
the last chapter titled 'What should Muslims do?' which, in 
essence, amounts to 'What Muslims should do.' Below is the Muslim 
scholar's post-Godhra prescription for Indian Muslims.

1. 'Muslims must try and become an integral part of the 
mainstream…they must whole-heartedly co-operate in enriching 
composite nationalism which continues to be our pride…they 
must get out of their ghetto mentality, break the barriers of 
alienation and generate a harmonious environment.'
'They should do some introspection and ask whether they have 
genuinely tried to contribute to the strengthening of Hindu-Muslim 
relations since Partition. The answer will be no.'

2. 'Indian Muslims must open their eyes to the ground reality that 
an increasing number of Hindus have begun to hate them... This is 
not confined to a small section; it has infected the rich as much 
as the poor; men as much as women; the young as much as the old; 
even children are no longer free from it.'

3. 'This is the ugly reality that Muslims have to face in today's 
India. They have to do their best to bring about a change in the 
hostile attitude of the communal Hindus towards them. This is as 
much in their interest as that of the nation. Muslims continue to 
live in a make-believe world of their own. Their leaders waste 
their energies in playing games, whipping up emotions, and 
bringing more trouble to the ordinary Muslims.'

4. 'Their self-serving leaders, with utter disregard to the 
aftermath of Partition, remained oblivious to their miserable 
decline and continued to behave with incredible arrogance, 
exhibiting a sense of false bravado by their loud utterances; they 
take out protest marches at the slightest pretext, hold 
demonstrations, shout slogans, demand justice and fair play but 
all this never gives any relief to the community…They fail to 
understand that by voicing meaningless grievances, asking for 
unrealistic rights, wailing, fretting and fuming, the leaders may 
gain some publicity but the community loses a great deal. They 
quote the Constitution and demand the implementation of this 
provision or that, guaranteed to the minorities but none of it 
gives Muslims the required protection; even democracy is ranged 
heavily against them because under it numbers count.'

5. 'Have these leaders and their hold on different sections of 
Muslims ever been tested? Have their credentials been verified? 
Their uncompromising and rigid attitude on every occasion has only 
weakened Hindu-Muslim relations further.'

6. 'Instead of coming out openly against Pakistan and taking a 
strong stand against the jihadis, these so-called guardians of 
Indian Muslims spend most of their time in running their own 
political shops to buttress their communal leadership.'

7. 'None of these leaders visit villages so they are unaware of 
the fallout of their actions on the poor and hapless who live in 
the remote parts of the country.'

8. 'Indian Muslims must now see the light of day and move in a 
different direction which will take them forward and not backward. 
They must discard their worn-out prejudices and outmoded habits 
and adjust themselves to the requirements of the changing times. 
They must give up asking for doles which will only cripple them. 
In order to survive, they must learn to stand on their own feet. 
For the fact is that they have no true friends; many of those who 
show them sympathy or consideration are not sincere. They do so 
only to obtain some electoral gain. This has been proved time and 
time again.'

9. 'Muslims rely on India's commitment to secularism, but it has 
not proved to be of much help. Nor have Muslims of other countries 
ever come to their rescue.'
10. 'To succeed, Indian Muslims must boldly come forward to 
undergo an all-round transformation in their style of functioning. 
If they neglect or fail to do so they will be ruined.'

11. 'They will succeed if parents shed their old habits, give up 
their outdated notions, and encourage and help their sons and 
daughters to get the best of education. Merit alone will give them 
reward; they must never seek patronage.'

12. 'Indian Muslims must disown the bigotism which has made 
Muslims pariahs everywhere. They must give to the non-Muslims the 
assurance that their religion stands for live and let live.' The 
orthodox clerics who shut themselves from the world must not be 
allowed to lock the Muslims.'

13. 'They must, without compromising the Quranic injunctions, 
agree to the introduction of certain much-needed, essential 
changes in their Personal Law, particularly the enactment of 
monogamy. There is, in fact, enough scope under the Shariah to 
amend the laws relating to marriage, divorce, dower and even 
maintenance. Ijtihad, (independent thinking) which was freely used 
by the classical jurists in the past, needs to be exercised by the 
present generation much more today.'

14. 'The issue of Babri Masjid must be amicably resolved; instead 
of talking it over with responsible elements among the Hindus, 
confrontation was adopted to press the point. This gave rise to 
more hatred against the Muslims.  What have the Muslim leaders 
really gained by mounting agitation after agitation?'

15m 'The controversy on the singing of Vande mataram by Muslims is 
also meaningless. It was sung by all Muslim leaders, belonging to 
the Congress, during the freedom struggle. Those Muslims who do 
not want to sing it, may not but they must stand up when it is 
sung as a mark of respect to an anthem which has a hoary past and 
is declared as a national song in the Constitution. Why add hurt 
to an already worsening inter-communal relationship?'

16. 'Hindus are piqued by the fact that Muslims are multiplying 
fast, much more than Hindus. The Census figures, decade after 
decade, confirm it... communal Hindus are, by and large, convinced 
that polygamy results in an increased rate of growth of people. It 
is, therefore, not in the interest of Indian Muslims to persist 
with it. Then there is the question of family planning, on which 
much of our progress depends; it cannot be denied that Muslims 
have not taken to it as seriously as the Hindus; this has to be 
corrected. There is no truth in the allegation that Islam 
prohibits family pla
nning.'

17. 'There must be a real awareness among Indian Muslims that they 
have to gird up their loins and prepare for reconciliation with 
Hindus on the basis that each respects the religious and cultural 
conventions, traditions and sentiments of the other.'

18. Elsewhere in his book, with regard to reform in Personal Laws 
as a prelude to a uniform civil code, Dr Zakaria comes with 
another home truth viz 'Muslims should not oppose something 
without knowing what it will be.'

19. All in all, Dr Zakaria's comprehensive 
diagnosis-cum-prescription is breath taking and path breaking. It 
is as though it were written out by the RSS chief himself. Indeed 
the essence of Dr Zakaria's prescription lies in what he says 
Sardar Patel told him in a personal meeting on May 19, 1950: 'The 
goodwill of the majority was the best safeguard for a minority.' 
Now wasn't that precisely what the RSS resolution said earlier 
this year? Wasn't that which got so much flak from the leftists 
and Patel's Congress descendants?

Dr Zakaria's courageous, almost historic, message would have been 
even more meaningful if he had told the Muslims about the Parsis, 
a minority that's probably the most liked community in India. 
Without raising a whimper about their unique religion and their 
rights, the Parsis have produced national luminaries in the field 
of law, industry, business, medicine, journalism and banking. The 
Parsis are the ones which the Muslims must emulate.

On the whole though, the Indian nation must stand up and say 
'Million thanks' to Dr Zakaria. And the least that the secular 
media must do is to give the widest possible exposure to the 
Islamic scholar's advice on what the Muslims should do beginning 
now.


Arvind Lavakare

© 2002 rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved.



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