Brahmin and Mullah

Sadna #483 Abolishment of the MoR would be my last act on that job, after having ``privatized`` the religious functions of the state.

On how does one go about separating religion and state if one does not have political power to do so. Your guess is as good as mine.

tahmed321 #482
Good, that makes it a good chance you can never be MoR. And if you were, you wouldnot be working to abolish your own ministry, now would you?

Anyway, what is the mechanism for such a thing to be practically done namely ``unmix church and state in Pakistan``?

sadna #260 you write ``Having to pay lip service to Islam in all public affairs has only strengthened the position of religious power centres and reinforce the strong position of those who solicit their support including the military and corrupt leaders of more moderate parties, all at the cost of power of the normal citizen.

The real values of Islam are not promoted by these power centres but their lip service puts them even more beyond the reach of corrective action by the normal citizen who is more concerned with roti-kapda and more able to express himself on these subjects than challenge his leaders on religion.``

Very well put, and worth repeating above. You are talking to the converted here on the issue of mixing state and religion. As soon as Zafar appoints me Minister for Religion I shall proceed to abolish Shariah Courts and unmix church and state. Indeed, Islam does not even have the concept of church (or organized priesthood) but that has not prevented people from creating it, so what we have is two, not one, step in the wrong direction - first we create a priesthood, and then we mix it up with the state. The Quran refers to only a couple of states (ancient Egyptian, ancient Roman and Queen Sheba`s state), with most of it`s messages being directed to people`s hearts and to the individual. The state is merely incidental. It talks approvingly of Queen Sheba`s state despite the fact that it was a non-Muslim state. Interestingly, the Shias in Iran for hundreds of years (until around the 17th century I think) deliberately shunned anything to do with the state. This was true for the Jews as well until the successful creation of Israel got nearly all of them to change their minds. Christians of course have gone the other way and explicitly separated church from the state (although we see a small rear-guard action in the US).

Zafar Al-Talib #477 #479
Thanks.
And the EC post, well let me nominate you as hon. PM but warn you that its a very very fragile coalition you have here :).

tahmed321 #478
Being `less armed` is only one of many points I made and apparently an acknowledgement of these or acknowledgement of the HRW report and its relevance to religious chauvinism in Pakistan was too much to expect, but whats new?

I donot see any activity in India equivalent to open recruitment of underage boys through mosques and madarassahs by political/religious organisations for fighting a religious war to the extent that reportedly ``30%`` of the fighting force of the most repressive government in the world [namely the Taliban] is made up of Pakistanis.

The Shah Bano issue makes clear that its not a phenomenon unique to Pakistan that some in power use the spurious excuses of religion or protection of religious identity to protect their power bases and get away with doing nothing for either religion nor for the religious community. The provision in the Indian Constitution for Muslims to have their own civil/personal law has reinforced the power of some to act as gatekeepers for the rest.

The extremist part of the Hindutva focus which is on `Hindu` identity and not issues of welfare to `Hindus` is another example. However, there is no special recognition granted to Hindu leaders of community in the Indian Constitution, so Hindutva-vadis have to peddle their politics in competition with others, at peril of rejection.

Your points seem to be that education and constitutional checks and balances will reign in religious chauvinism in Pakistan.

My point is that it was the educated who brought in Islamic provisions as sops to other educated who chose to indulge in religious chauvinism as the language of politics.

For eg:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pakistan/pakistan/constitution/part1.html

2. Islam shall be the State religion of Pakistan [2A]and the Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah shall be the supreme law and source of guidance for legislation to be administered through laws enacted by the Parliament and Provincial Assemblies, and for policy making by the Government.

[Notes : 2A The words ``and the Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah shall be the supreme law and source of guidance for legislation to be administered through laws enacted by the Parliament and Provincial Assemblies, and for policy making by the Government`` were added by the Constitution (Ninth Amendment) Act, 1985.]


The Islamic provisions in the Pakistani Constitution have increasingly brought lip service to Islam as a valid and ``morally superior to all other arguments`` argument into the Pakistani polity.

Having to pay lip service to Islam in all public affairs has only strengthened the position of religious power centres and reinforce the strong position of those who solicit their support including the military and corrupt leaders of more moderate parties, all at the cost of power of the normal citizen.

The real values of Islam are not promoted by these power centres but their lip service puts them even more beyond the reach of corrective action by the normal citizen who is more concerned with roti-kapda and more able to express himself on these subjects than challenge his leaders on religion.

Absence of elections has only reinforced this distance between the depradations of these power centers and corrective action by citizens.

Hence having to pay lip service to Islam in all public affairs has made religious chauvinism a profitable stand in society and politics.

This is also not unique to Pakistan. A look at other Islamic countries will underline this.

Bringing religion into public affairs is not a `directive` or basic principle of the Indian Constitution.

Reply Tahmed321

Minister saheb, many thanks. I take this to mean that the general intention of the Koranic injunction on maher is to economically protect divorced women, and therefore it would support the payment of alimony in this day and age. [All credit for information given to MoI, all mistakes in interpretation are mine.]

Sadna - your posts have shown a really admirable commitment to democratic franchise. Perhaps you will consent to be (mujhe aisi himmath kahan se aa rahi hai?) the EC? :-)

sadna #472

``I didnot understand this statement `` dont see the close link between constitutional checks and balances and religious chauvinism````

What I mean is: Religious chauvinism has to do with attitudes of people. Constitutional checks have to do with political control. The latter do not impact on the former.

``May I wonder why Pakistan has had so many dictators?``

My theory is that it is a legacy of the cold war. Pakistan was clearly in the western camp when it joined CENTO, SEATO pacts. The publicly known policy of the US was to support ``strongmen`` as long as they were on the right side. Once the military found how easy it is to take over (under Ayub), it became a bad habit, repeated by Zia and now PM. Trouble with PM is that the cold war is over and he is not finding support in the west. No wonder he is not as confident as Ayub or Zia were.

``did each dictator take it on himself/herself to introduce Islamic provisions into the Constitution?``

Only Zia did. Partly because he believed in it, but mainly as a way to cling to power.

You may disagree that religious chauvinists in India are less vicious than Pakistan - I think you mean less dangerous (in your view) since they are not armed so heavily. Anyway, far be it from me to start worrying about which of the two thugs is a bigger thug.

Zafar Al-Talib: Since you have appointed me Minister of Information, I shall do my utmost to live up to the great responsibility that has been placed on my shoulders. ;-)

Here is my understanding: On maher, there is indeed mention of the dower in Surah Al-Nisa, where men are enjoined not to try and get back the dower through unfair means. This statement can clearly apply only in those societies where brides were bought and men tried to get back their ``bride price``. That was true in 7th century Saudi Arabia, but is hardly the case in most parts of the subcontinent (where dowery is given by the bride`s family with maher being agreed but generally not given by the man unless a divorce takes place). So, I dont think there is any religious basis for this and agree 100% with you that it is in fact unIslamic (since Islam is first and foremost about justice and consideration for the weak - the bride in this case).

You will notice something else quite interesting here: while most of the Quran is for universal application (e.g. attributes of God like Justice and Mercy), others can logically be considered applicable to a specific situation only: e.g. there are surah`s on how to behave in front of the Holy Prophet (not to speak louder than him, for example) and logically those passages can be relevant only for during the life of the Holy Prophet. The question of dower as discussed above is another such example of something that can logically be applied only to a particular situation. If one keeps in mind the spirit of Islam (which is repeated over and over again with great clarity in the Quran), one would never take the position these people took in claiming that the 40 rupee or something dowery was OK. The spirit of Islam would perhaps call for something closer to what is true in the US where women are treated far better than in Pakistan (I dont know about India) in divorce courts.

Reply Sadna #473

You wrote:``I am curious to understand whether Muslim women`s organisations are more free to advocate and win `progressive`(according to ones pov :)) changes in Muslim law as a minority religious community in India or as part of a 97% Muslim community in Pakistan and overwhelming majority in Bangladesh.``

Hard to tell. I have NO data to back this up, but my feeling is that Bangladesh might come out ahead - a better combination of the ease which comes from being a majority and a nationalism that is less dependant on religious identity?

Then, of course, you could point the finger at the Lajja incident! (Of course since Lajja was actually written by a Muslim woman, this might also support my point.)

I think that there are other cultural factors at work as well. IN PRACTICE the rights Muslim women enjoy vary widely from place to place in each country - they might be greater in Karachi than in Quetta (I`m just guessing). They are probably greater along the West Coast of India and the South than in our Cow belt. I don`t believe that it`s a random factor that Shah Bano was from Indore, not UP. In Bangladesh the Bengali tradition is likely to be a positive factor.

If you look outside the subcontinent, women`s rights in Muslim majority countries also vary widely. (eg Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, to give three very different situations.) Yup - I think it`s a matter of culture and history, and how they shaped people`s idea of (religous) justice.

sb #466
``Ours is a manda gaja gamanam(slow elephant`s walk``
Thats a nice expression. I wish it would speed up :). Have you heard of Asha for Education :www.ashanet.org? Just reading a description of its projects makes one realise how much needs to be done.

PM #470
Thanks. Its nice to see you, have you been away?

Zafar #

Chowk is a ruinous habit, let me advise you :).

Thanks for elaborating, I agree with what you say re Shah Bano and vote bank politics. I think the protection of identity/seige question you mentioned was a very valid one and is still up in the air due to the complications of these idiot Hindutva-vadis. The upcoming UP elections are going to be a tough ride for communal relations, I am really afraid.

But I fault the Congress and Rajiv Gandhi anyway. Inciting riots has been a known technique of the Congress to protect its minority turf, perversely Muslims suffered most in riots. So Rajiv Gandhi was a prisoner of his own party`s covert policies when he made the excuse of riots.

What you rightly term vote-bank politics has allowed the Congress to get away with only token gestures toward the Muslim communities and not do anything really concrete and focussed on improving the human development indices of the Muslim community, something which is absolutely indispensible to protect their identity.

btw, three cheers for your resp. mother :).
btw, the Muslim maintenance law is likely to be the subject of a Supreme Court ruling soon and three cheers for these activists too:

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20010521&fname=Hasina+Khan+%28F%29&sid=1&pn=1

I am curious to understand whether Muslim women`s organisations are more free to advocate and win `progressive`(according to ones pov :)) changes in Muslim law as a minority religious community in India or as part of a 97% Muslim community in Pakistan and overwhelming majority in Bangladesh.

tahmed321 #469

tahmed321 #469
I didnot understand this statement `` dont see the close link between constitutional checks and balances and religious chauvinism``

May I wonder why Pakistan has had so many dictators? Why did each dictator take it on himself/herself to introduce Islamic provisions into the Constitution?

`` And I think you will agree that religious chauvinists in India are no less vicious than in Pakistan.``

I wouldnot agree at all. For one thing, no religious chauvinist in India, however vicious can declare any Hindu `nonHindu` nor pronounce a `qabil-e-whatever` namely a death sentence, there is no such religious tradition.

Secondly, the means of empowerment of chauvinists:

There is no provision in the Indian Constitution that every law has to be scrutinized for adherence to `Hindusim` or Islam or Christianity, etc. There is no Hindu body equivalent to Council for Islamic ideology recognised by the government which pronouces its opinion on how Hindu a law is or is not and there is no equivalent of Federal Shariat Appellate Court. This has made chauvinism a less profitable tradition.


Moreover, the Constitution is strictly secular so inciting hatred against other religious communities is a punishable offence. This is used and misused, but the most famous example is Bal Thackeray was barred from voting for 6 years for making a hateful speech against Muslims during a political campaign.

There is no law against blashemy against any religion, for example, the absence of such a law puts lynch-style hatred-inciting mobs in their place and shows them for what they really are in the eyes of the law and society:not pious defenders of the faith or national ideology (as can be and has been the case in Pakistan everytime a blasphemy case is filed or prosecuted) but lynch mobs finding profit in violence and cornering the market on religion, plain and simple.

Yes, there are lynch mobs, as vicious as anywhere in the world, but no they cannot claim to protect religion, nor can any BJP politician, because there is not such thing as protecting religion. Hence you will see them talk of `protecting culture`, thats it.

Neither are there religion-based laws for Hindus, amendments to which are attacked as a insult to Hindus. Even in civic affairs, there have been laws introduced AGAINST specific Hindu practices like dowry.

Bottomline, there is a very solid legal leg to stand on and no room for pussyfooting in the name of religion, if one decides to go after chauvinists.

Coming to other means of empowerment of religious chavinists :

The equivalent of loads of money from Arab countries to keep religious leaders in paint and powder has not happened in India on the `Hindu` side. I am sure there are foreign contributions to Hindutva organizations, but they cannot carry out their activities from a temple or with any implicit religious sanction, temples are administered as public property in India.

Moreover, Hindutva organisations are not religious bodies, but political/social ones. So their chauvinism is more a politico-social matter, with very little religious steam. Moreover these organisations have no standing in the eyes of the state different from say Christian or Muslim organisations, infact Christian and Muslim organisations are granted more power over their affairs by the state than Hindu organisations, leading to a number of Hindu organsiations trying to get a legal status of nonHindu, perversely.

Lastly, I donot see the `inter-sect` fraticidal conflict dimension of religious chauvinism among Hindu extremists.

Secondly, another means of empowerment of chauvinists : people donot carry hand weapons or assault weapons in public in India, except in the depths of UP and Bihar, or for government-sponsored protection of people at risk. (I cannot answer for the Mumbai underworld). I myself have seen an assault weapon only once, carried by government security agents protecting a top bureacrat.

Do you know how the most famous vicious chavinist Dara Singh(who reportedly burned the Australian missionary and his sons to death) was caught. An Orissa police sting offered to sell him a gun and went to meet him in the forest. When Dara Singh was then arrested, the weapons he had on him were knife and arrows or something, he owned no guns.

Are not religious-chavinists in Pakistan much better equipped to menace the population?

Indian press has lately reported `arms training` of Bajrang Dalis in parts of UP. In Pakistan many jihadi organisations have been training for many years in Pakistan, and their members cross borders into other countries to fight. I cannot name a single Indian-based organisation with this sort of battle-hardened mercenery corp.

When the guy Masood Azhar was released after the IA hijacking, he addressed a gathering of a few lakhs of supporters to his jihad cause in cities like Karachi. Recruitment and fund collection for armed conflict is openly done in Pakistani cities or not? We donot have openly operating (Hindu or Muslim)equivalents of Binori Town madarassah and Markaz-Ul-Dawa universities with resources invested in arms training, in India.

And about foreign policy providing gainful employment to fundamentalists :
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan2/Afghan0701-02.htm#P350_92934


This is the most perplexing statement of all:
``However, I think you seriously underestimate the quality of people we have in Pakistan.``

I think I have much more faith in the `quality of people in Pakistan` that you do, thats why I keep saying they should be allowed to enter public life in full force and not be nose-led any further by those who think they know better.

I am the one who believes in holding elections and not interrupting the electoral process with these dictatorships and interventions in national interest. IMO, the Pakistani people have suffered enough from decades of military rule or military-sponsored rule.

Sorry for a long post.

Sadna and Tahmed

I freely admit it. I am addicted to Chowk. This is why I log on repeatedly and reread things, and why I am compelled to add ``just one more thing``.

If you will bear with me.

Sadna - this is how the Shah Bano case looked from where I sit.

Shah Bano asked for maintenance. Islam has (at least in theory) addressed maintenance for divorced women with the concept of ``meher``.

Meher is the amount of capital the groom pledges to his bride at their wedding, and which reverts to her on divorce. At the time of the Prophet it was forty peices of gold - enough for a woman to start her own business in the case of divorce. In other words, enough money to live on (or earn a living with) for the rest of her life. Not dragged out payments for the rest of her life.

In India today, the forty pieces of whatever have been taken at face value (rather self servingly) and when a poor woman is divorced, she frequently receives FORTY RUPEES. (That`s right, not even the price of a vegetarian thali.)

Is that fair? No.

Is it Islamic? Arguably not.

Could it be argued that paying maintenance to Shah Bano more accurately fulfils the intention of the Islamic rule? Definitely.

Tahmed - am I right with the facts so far?

Anyway - then why was the whole maintenance thing labelled an assault on Muslim values and culture by, as Sadna says, influential Indian Muslims?

The reasons are not religious. One could even say that they were profoundly unIslamic.

Why didn`t many Indian Muslims speak in favour of maintenance?

My feeling is that there are many vested interests in the Muslim community (as well as others) which benefit from disempowered people - and disempowered women is key to this. These same interests did their best (and they succeded) to stifle a debate on this in the Muslim community - also in part the better to bolster their claim to speak for the community as a whole. (I believe that we`re known as a vote bank.)

How did they stifle debate? The usual methods. A combination of thuggery and threats and an appeal to Muslim ``loyalty``.

I`ve addressed this posting to both of you (1) because I want Sadna to know where I stand on this, and perhaps to get a ``inside view`` of what the struggle was about and (2) Tahmed, you have by default been appointed the Ministry of Information and I hope that you will point out any inaccuracies in my diatribe.

Zafar

PS The Shahi Imam of Delhi`s Jama Masjid is archetypically one of these reactionary Indian Muslim elements - indulges in hystrionics such as threatening to ask for an Arab boycott of India if BM not rebuilt, etc. etc. But how important would he be if these issues were not seen as vital, and Indian Muslims were seen by the media as being more concerned with things like education, employment, law and order (which I think in reality we are)?

re Sadna #various

Thank you once again for the many probing questions posed and penetrating insights offered-- whether or not TAhmed is right about your `underestimating the people of Pakistan` (which, incidentally, I think he misses the mark, and your point, on)

rgds,

PM



Zafar, your moderating voice has been a welcome addition to the chowk. Please stick around.



TAhmed,

Contrary to what certain other stratospheric chowkies might contend, I think you do a valuable job in educating us every now and then on the Quran position on certain matters-- or at least an alternative POV. Good on ya!

sadna #465 I guess we can all pray to God to save us from His followers.

PS I dont see the close link between constitutional checks and balances and religious chauvinism: the two are largely unrelated. Dictatorships can be secular (military like PM or civil like would-be dictator NS) or religious ( military like Zia or civil like would-be dictators, the Jamaats). Trust me, I am Pakistani and therefore an expert on dictatorships :-)

And I think you will agree that religious chauvinists in India are no less vicious than in Pakistan. We all need to fight religious chauvinism in whatever way we can, and rest assured in Pakistan people are not sitting on their hands. When Zia introduced the chopping of hands as punishment (in his never ending evil quest to intimidate people in Pakistan), NOT ONE doctor in Pakistan could be found to carry out this punishment. He ultimately had to give up the idea. People have written books explaining the Islam of the Holy Prophet (the one I explained to you) and these have been widely praised in newspapers and no mullah has dared challenge them (no mullah will dare to challenge the word of the Quran, but it is easy to ignore it as they do). You may wish to think of this when you start worrying about the Pakistani people caving in to chauvinists. I am not saying all is blue skies in Pakistan - indeed we have serious problems to worry about. However, I think you seriously underestimate the quality of people we have in Pakistan.