The following article by Syeed Shahabuddin M.P Editor of the Indian monthly Muslim is published for the benefit of our readers since we face similar issues, environment, and discrimination. We also have like concerns.
Hindu India symbolized by the Rss, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Shiv Sena, which constitute the Trinity of Chauvinism, says that Indian Muslims are a problem, a burden, a constant irritant, a potential threat Muslim India says that Muslim Indians are not a problem; they face problems, individually and collectively.
Hindu India suggests that the solution lies in conversion or assimilation, or castration or liquidation. Muslim India demands Security, Dignity and Equality as citizens and as a Community, in accordance with the traditions of the Freedom Movement and the precepts of the Constitution.
Hindu India demands surrender of dignity, abdication of religious identity and absorption in the mainstream of Hindu culture. Muslim India is conceptually for Hindu Muslim unity and for composite culture.
Hindu India speaks of “national unity” and defines the nation in Hindu terms. Indeed Hindu India deliberately confuses geography with theology, India with Hinduism, state with religion, a land with people. For Hindu India, the Muslim community does not exist as a community. Generously it concedes the existence of a “citizen” when mode of worship is Islamic. But a Muslim citizen is of non-Indian origin. A Muslim, by definition, nurses extraterritorial loyalty.
What is not fully appreciated is that neither Muslim nor Hindu India are mutually exclusive; they cannot be uprooted; they interpenetrate each other; intertwined, culturally, economically, politically, physically and socially they are face to face in every lane, in every locality, in every town and city. They simply cannot be separated.
Muslim India does not exist at the mercy of Hindu India or as an act of charity or grace on its part. Muslim India exists on its own, as a fact of life. A religious group, though numerically only 12% of the total population, but nearly 100 million strong, cannot be ignored or left out of calculation or consigned to oblivion or forced into submergence; it cannot be physically liquidated; it cannot be forcibly converted; it cannot be pushed out; it cannot be drowned in the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian sea. Even the contribution of Islam to the making of Indian culture, to the evolution of Hinduism itself, cannot be undone, History cannot be reversed.
By the same token, Hindu India cannot be converted to Islam; the Hindu roots of the India’s composite culture cannot be pulled out, Hinduism cannot be wished away; Muslim rule cannot be restored; Islamic way of life cannot be imposed; Muslim India cannot step the march of democracy.
What is not fully appreciated is that neither Muslim nor Hindu India are mutually exclusive; they cannot be uprooted; they interpenetrate each other; intertwined, culturally, economically, politically, physically and socially they are face to face in every lane, in every locality, in every town and city. They simply cannot be separated.
Then why must they hate or distrust each other? Why. Must they growl or even frown at each other? Why can’t they have civilized interaction? Why can’t they recognize each other’s legitimacy, their right to exist, their right to live their own lives and yet equal right to the bounties of Nature and to the fruits of common endeavor? Why can’t they join hands and serve the common cause of building a great country and giving a better life, a happier life, to its entire people?
But rights and duties go together. Can Muslim Indians deny their duty towards the country they live in? Can, then, Hindu Indians deny the right of Muslim Indians to be what they are and yet receive their due share? Their only real option is to live in peace and harmony and to evolve a JUST SOCIETY.
Because neither the Hindu or the Muslim Society in India is perfect and even socially or economically homogeneous, there is vertical compartmentalisation and horizential Stratification; call it Biradari, Jamaat call it by a name, cleavages exist and even a common religion fails to build a line of communication or to bridge the gulf. Neither is monolithic and each has its fragile corners, its vulnerable points, its weak spots, its fault lines ….Beyond the common task of national building they should each concentrate on removing prejudices and disparities lurking within, between Brahmins and Harijans, between the so-called Ashraf & Afzal.
The Hindu or Muslim rich are ready to please their Ishwar or Allah as the case may be on extravagant rituals and Jalsas but do they take care of their hungry neighbor even if he shares the same faith?
But, human concern has a very small radius. One’s world is ever divided into concentric circles around ‘oneself one’s family comes first and forms the innermost circle, then comes the circle of clan, tribe or caste; then comes the nation state and then the rest of the world. Human greatness is indeed largely a function of the circle of concern. The larger the radius the greater the man. Truly great men care for the human race which is one and indivisible despite all the differences of race, religion, language or nationality. Lesser men profess human unity and yet stop at the boundaries of their ‘own’ ‘we? Matters: ‘they’ do not. ‘We’ are always right; ‘they’ are always wrong. The Hashimpura Youth, victims of genocide do not matter, because they are not men of ‘our’ religion; victims of police atrocities in tribal Assam do not matter; they are not men of our race. Victims of linguistic chauvinism in Andhra Pradesh do not matter; they do not speak “our” language, Of course atrocities in Afghanistan or Kampuchea or South Africa or Palestine hardly touch our soul distant disasters are no more than headlines. The elite hardly care for the wretched of the earth. A royal style of life on the part of rulers goes together with the starving ruled and no one sheds a tear. The Hindu or Muslim rich are ready to please their Ishwar or Allah as the case may be on extravagant rituals and Jalsas but do they take care of their hungry neighbor even if he shares the same faith?
The Challenge
So, on one hand, Muslim India has to resist the aggressive postures of Hindu Chauvinism on the other it has to put its own house in order; it has to organize itself, not only for demanding its rights but for performing its duty towards itself, as well as towards the country and all its people.
Problems can be identified. Short-term and long term solutions can be prescribed. Battle lines can be drawn. Tasks can be assigned. Logical sequences on various fronts can be worked out; the strategy and the tactics can be spelt out. But can the battle be won without warriors? Can the task be performed without organization? Can the Will of Allah prevail without willing human hands?
So, in order to face the Challenge of the Nineties, Muslim India needs not only a Charter of Demands but a plan of action and a Corps of Activists. But, remember, conscripts cannot be Activists; forced laborers cannot be soldiers; self-seekers cannot be leaders. The Muslim elite are too self-centered (with a few honorable exceptions). It is concerned only with its own privileges and comforts, it sees security in connection; it suffers indignities and yet kisses the Mouth that abuses him and the Hand that beats him, so long as the Face is prepared to smile once in a while and a crumb is thrown. At him from the table of power from time to time. The Muslim elite is ever prepared to pay a tribute and to sing paeans of glory to the tyrant, because it sees its statue, its wealth, its influence as all due to the ‘benign’ ruler’s favor not due to the operation of the political system or to the working of the Constitution or to the rule of Law. This false perception must go. This attitude must change. The struggle for JUST SOCIETY must be waged politically, constitutionally and legally.
Leaders In Every Village/Mohalla
To win the political battle which shall solve their problems, ensure a life of dignity and equality and enable it to survive as a community. Muslim India must throw up a soldier, worker in every village, in very mohalla who is selfless who has integrity, which is intelligent and capable. A man of modest means who is not anxious to get rich quickly, a person who cannot be purchased, cannot be frightened, who can dialogue with the Administration on equal terms, Muslim India needs men at all levels who are not hostile to the system or look upon the Hindu community as the enemy but who never exaggerates nor ignores situations. A man respected for his fairness and uprightness and sense of justice, he is prepared to criticize or condemn a wrong committed by his own community in relation to another. Such a man can act as the “interlocutor valuable” as the intermediary, as the liaison whom both the community and the system respect.
Do we have such people? I have no doubt that we do. The human material is there, but a rough diamond needs to be cut and polished,
The questions therefore are
*Can local Muslim youth be trained to take up the role of leadership in their own localities?
*Can Muslim India find the resources to undertake a programme of selection and training;
*Can Muslim India sustain and support the trained corps so that, free of economic worries, they may devote themselves to the assigned role?
Bait Ul Mal — A System Of Organized Charity
Then questions can find an easy answer if the Muslim community, for whom charity is a religious Act, had a system of organized charity. Supposing every Panchayat, every block, every Ward of every town or city, every district had a Bait Ul Mal which would, among its various activities,
But, remember, conscripts cannot be Activists; forced laborers cannot be soldiers; self-seekers
Cannot be leaders.
*Support the education of promising children; and
*Select and support its own education youth, one in each village/ward to take up the role of spokesman and intermediary;
*Support the organizations of local AWAMI KHIDMAT KAMITI to advise and assist the youth leader.
Numerical Dimension
What is the numerical dimension of the problem? May be roughly 40,000 villages and roughly 10,000 wards in the country with Muslim concentration. Depending upon the population level each may need one or two workers. What is thus needed is a programme to select and train 100,000 leaders, and then roughly 5000 annually to form a continuous stream?
Awami Khadim
A rural of urban community in a village or ward blessed with such capable and selfless AWAMI KHADIMS can, even in the worst of circumstances ensure a fair deal for itself and its area in terms of schools, medical facilities, roads, water and electric supply, pensions for the aged, the indigent & the handicapped, its due share under every scheme, central or state or municipal, for the welfare of the people. It can ensure that its unemployed are registered, that its grievances are heard and remedied by the authorities, that its dignity is never violated; that the bureaucracy behaves, that the teachers teach, that the engineer builds, that the doctor treats as they should.
This is not to envisage a depoliticized society or a party less system. There shall always be pulls and pressures, a scramble for resources at every level. There shall be need for sustained political action when administration turns a deaf ear or a blind eye and of course when fundamental rights and directive principles of state policies are sought to be changed to the detriment of the minorities and other weaker sections.
Today Muslim India is not receiving it due and is the object of injustice and oppression, not because there is anything wrong with the national policies or constitutional principles but because Muslim India is not organized as it should be. Emotions and sentiments will not carry the community very far in this cruel, heartless world; Education and Organizations will.
The Challenge of the NINETIES can be met only through organized collective endeavor, within the constitutional and legal framework through a selfless leadership working through a well-planned Order of the Day.
Is the Muslim Youth prepared to gird its loins to face the Future, to lend its shoulders to the Wheel of History?
Article extracted from this publication >> March 24, 1989
