India’s Communal Gamble

Re: hobbyty #103

``It was very interesting reading your post. I am struck that you saw Muslim college students wanting to go to the Middle East. Was this becausing of better opportunities?, then why not go to America? or was it that they did not see a future for themselves in India? And was this ``their`` mistake?``

``Their`` Mistake, was giving up even before they tried . i also know of many muslims who tried and by the grace of Allah , they are very successful .

i will tell you a real story about a person i know . During his late school days he came under the influence of some fanatics and wanted to go to Afghanistan to fight . he almost did but his parents got to know of it and somehow stopped him . After that his family and friends helped him understand his mistake and asked him to learn more about islam . He studied islam and also did his engineering and then went on to IIT Delhi for his Mtech . In IIT , his professors were very impressed by him and nicknamed him ``Abul Kalam Jr`` . Btw he is also a Hafiz ul Quran(one who knows the Holy Quran by heart ) . Needless to say , he is very much successful .

Asif,

I take my words back... with people like Sadna and Rsaxena, I can understand where you are comming from...I have to say Sadna`s post was the worst piece of her toxins I have seen yet.

Aisha

Sigalph 235,

When `serious people` like you respond to my typical ylh/paki bashing, it puts me in a difficult position. In any case the para you quoted is alleged to be the `words` of YLH with me providing the key strokes. I usually do not criticise the religion, but I am severe with its manifestation in pakistan.

Having grown up in a muslim majority area in kerala, with a muslim as my late fathers bussiness partner for more than forty years, with a muslim as my best friend for more than thirty years, I know what a keralite is and what islam means to him.

In conclusion let me say, islam like any religion, like any book is intangible, and what we can see and react to is the manifestation of it, and what any one can see in pakistan at the instituional level is disgusting. This has nothing to do with pakistanis at an individual level, except for asif naqbandi, i am suspecious of that chappie, I have no hesitation what so ever to invite any of chowk pakistanis as a honoured guest.

regards and best wishes.

jayaprakash

Re: Zafar

i am very new to chowk and i got this impressions from some of his postings .

At LAST (!!!) battle is joined over definitions of the Indian Muslim community. I vote (obviously) for Shabana. What do other Indian Muslims think? What about Pakistani Muslims? If you had to chose whom would you vote for?

Tehelka se:

http://www.tehelka.com/channels/currentaffairs/2001/oct/22/ca102201imam.htm

Imam Bukhari vs Shabana Azmi:

who represents the Indian Muslim?

Zafar Agha writes about the average Indian Muslim - deprived of a voice and typecast in a patently unfair manner by the media and majority communalists, who pick up the rabblerousing Imam Bukhari rhetoric more readily than the voices of sanity in the community

New Delhi, October 22

Who represents Muslims in this country: Shahi Imam Maulana Abdullah Bukhari or famous film personality Shabana Azmi? There is, of course, no parallel between the two. The Shahi Imam is the classic rabblerouser - a bearded Muslim cleric, who uses the pulpit to rouse Muslim passions along communal lines. Imam Bukhari is known for issuing fatwas at the drop of a hat. Be it the war in Afghanistan, or the issue of rights for women divorcees, the Shahi Imam calls to Muslims, asking them to stand up in defence of Islam.

Is Bukhari the classic Muslim, necessarily accepted as the representative of the Muslim community in India? Or should Shabana Azmi be the one counted as among the key voices of the Muslim community? Azmi is no stereotypical Muslim. She wears a bindi on her forehead and does not cover her head in the traditional Muslim fashion. Shabana is an out-and-out liberal, who hails from the Left-leaning family of poet Kaifi Azmi. She vocally supports reforms for Muslim women, and vehemently fights all shades of fundamentalism - be it the Hindutva variety or Muslim fanaticism. Does this background qualify or disqualify her as representative of the Muslim voice on a sensitive issue, like the Afghan war?

This question is at the centre of a huge media debate. Imam Bukhari refuses to count Shabana as a Muslim voice at all, and Shabana blames the media for building fanatics like Bukhari as the only Muslim voice. ``It is a huge community, where you have moderates, you have fanatics, you have all shades of opinion. How can you take a voice of a person like Imam Bukhari, and paint it as the community voice?`` an angry Shabana asked the other day. ``How can an actress be representative of Muslims,`` retorted Imam Bukhari, to Shabana`s objection. So who is the classical Indian Muslim voice: a traditional cleric, or a moderate balanced Muslim?

Neither of the two, I would say. Fanatics like Imam Bukhari are an opportunist lot that cash in on Muslim sentiments for their own ends. The liberal-moderate voices, like Shabana Azmi, are too engrossed in their own worlds, standing up only once in a while to differ with clerics like Bukhari. They are but an occasional event in the world of the common Indian Muslim.

The average Indian Muslim world is abnormal - one that does not fit into any stereotype. They live and struggle for daily survival, like every other community. Like every Indian, they work to earn their bread; they face life as anyone would face it. In the secular context of survival, they need no cleric or Shabana Azmi to speak on their behalf.

The world of the Indian Muslim also involves the secular process of choosing a representative to speak for him/her in legislatures. A look at the Muslim voting pattern until the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took centrestage, would show that the representative of the Muslim has largely been the same as that of the majority community, the Hindus. Both Indian Hindus, as well as Indian Muslims, were largely voting for the Congress until 1977.

The post-emergency 1977 general elections were a watershed in Indian parliamentary history, when both Hindus and Muslims of north India together threw the Congress out of power, and attempted to weave an alternative to the Congress. One can, therefore, assume that secular political parties represented the secular-political Muslim community, just as much as they represented any other community.

Even beyond 1977, both the Hindus and the Muslims had been choosing identical political representatives for their secular concerns. In 1980, for instance, the average Indian voter of north India, irrespective of the religious community, was disillusioned with the Janata Party, and went back to the Congress, reposing faith in Indira Gandhi. Once again, in 1989, when V P Singh rode to power with his Janata Dal platform, the average Muslim voted for V P Singh, just as the Hindus did. So much so that Muslim leader Shahabuddin, with his communal Insaf Party, failed to win even his own parliamentary seat in 1989.

Even in the midst of the Ram temple-Babri mosque controversy, Indian Muslims looked to V P Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Kashi Ram and Laloo Prasad Yadav as their leaders, rather than voting for a Muslim League-type communal political party. Ironically, the educated Hindu middleclass shifted loyalty to the Hindutva brand of politics, while the average Indian Muslim stuck to secular parties, despite facing the worst communal onslaught in post-partition Indian history. In secular terms and concerns, therefore, Sonia Gandhi, Jyoti Basu, Mulayam Singh Yadav or Laloo Prasad Yadav are as much Muslim voices, as they are Hindu voices.

Differences arise only when the Indian Muslim is facing a crisis - like demolition of the Babri mosque, the issue of personal laws, the status of the Urdu language, or when s/he is discriminated against in jobs for being a Muslim. These moments of identity crisis bring us back to our original question - who represents Muslim concerns in these situations: an Imam Bukhari or a Shabana Azmi?

Ironically, Muslims have not had the luxury of choice in these situations. Being in minority, they suffer, not unnaturally, from siege psychosis. At the end of the day, it cannot be refuted that riots do take place in this country, and that it is largely Muslims who die in communal riots. So, in the moments of identity crisis, leaders like Imam Bukhari step in and cash in on the Muslim sense of insecurity, while moderates like Shabana Azmi are pushed to the margins.

The media, as is its wont, laps up hot copy. People like Bukhari, therefore, make it to the headlines, provoking others like them to react. This, of course, goes to generate more interesting copy. In the bargain, Muslims are stereotyped as a fanatic community that only listens to clerics like Bukhari, and loves terrorists like Osama bin Laden. We have a situation where a person like Shabana Azmi has to fight to say: I am no Bukhari, but I am a Muslim; why don`t you listen to me!

Even in this debate, though, the voice of the average Muslim does not count. Nobody cares for the fact that nowhere in India have Indian Muslims taken to the streets in solidarity with Osama bin Laden. Hindu communalists pick up one statement by Imam Bukhari, asking Muslims to rise in jihad for Osama, to label the entire community as inherently terrorist.

Who could correct this perception? The media? No, the media has no time for corrections. It just reports. But it needs to be said that as Bajrang Dal leader Vinay Katiyar, with his fanatic statements, cannot be the voice of the Hindu community, so Imam Bukhari does not speak for the entire Indian Muslim community.

Indian Muslims are caught in a communal bind - the Bukharis speak on behalf of them, and the majority communalists lap it up. The Katiyars thrive on the Bukharis. Perhaps, the need of the hour is that more Shabanas among the Muslims speak up, breaking the stereotype of the fanatic Muslim, led by a ranting cleric.



[The actual incident:]

From The Pioneer

http://www.dailypioneer.com/secon2.asp?cat= story7&d=FRONT_PAGE



The `nachne gaane wali...` and Shahi Imam

Preeti John/New Delhi

Reporter: ``Actually this is about the episode about the Shahi Imam on We the People...``

Shabana Azmi: What episode?``Reporter: ``The things he said to you about you...``



Shabana: ``come on! say it. Repeat what he said. Why are you so apologetic about it?``

Reporter: ``um.... naachne... gaane wali... tawaif.``

This is what an angry Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid bellowed and insisted on standing by during Barkha Dutt`s We the People programme on Sunday.

In uttering such unwarranted abuses relayed nationwide to over 5 million shocked homes, this self-styled religious leader of the Muslims raised the hackles of not only the Muslims among the audiences, but also presenter Barkha Dutt. She conveyed the anger of the audience to him. She gave him the option to apologise. And when he said the question of an apology does not arise, he was taken off the programme.

In the aired version the ``tawaif`` bit was beeped out to maintain the sensibilities of the nation. But what followed actually between breaks and what was not aired was a spontaneous outrage from the programme guests. They chanted ``shame, shame``, they went up to Shabana to apologise on behalf of the Imam and the actress did manage to put up a brave front after the initial shock.

The unwarranted remark by Imam Bukhari came in response to a pertinent question from Shabana. She had asked him if he has issued a fatwa to all Muslims to prepare for jehad, ``why don`t you go to Kandahar and start the process. This would take away our troubles too,`` she told him during a video conferencing sequence on the subject Why the voice of liberal Muslims goes unheard``.

His response was: ``Main naachne gaane wali tawaifon ke sawalon ka jawab nahin dena chahta hoon.``

Shabana is a woman offended though she prefers not to get after the abuse heaped on her. When contacted by the Pioneer, the actress-activist said: ``poor fellow. It shows him for who he is. I do not want to say anything further on this issue.``

The feisty actress, who was earlier in fundmentalist bad books for getting a peck on the cheek from Nelson Mandela and her role in Fire, says the episode reveals the Imam`s attitude towards artistes and those who challenge his view.

Back from his evening namaz on monday, an unrepentant Bukhari banged the phone down twice on the reporter before telling her curtly: ``Maine sahi bola. Aapne suna nahi usne kis lehze mein humse baat kari.`` He refused to answer further questions, saying it was beneath his dignity to talk about ``aisi aurat.``

Bukhari may be unrepentant, but the Muslim community is reeling under the insult that came from within. Sayeda Hameed, convenor of the Muslim Women`s Forum, was the first to rush to Shabana in the programme break and express her shame over such a blatant abuse.

Ms Hameed said,`` though Islam has given a high status to women, it is such attitudes which have give it an unequal gender image internationally.`` For anchorwoman Barkha Dutt ``it was the most difficult of situations to handle. It has never got so personal before,`` she said, adding, ``as an anchor I have to be neutral and also maintain a certain level of decency.``

So, after the first round live on TV, the main protagonists are keeping a low profile. But for the Imam who once again banged down the phone on the query: ``What if you are sued?``

xxabbu # 64

``I have green tiles in my bathroon, and the pot is also green. Is that real bad?``

As long as the sh!t is anything BUT green you

are all right.Trust me:))))

Regards.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Or is it all just too close to the bone?

From rediff:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/oct/22spec.htm



The Rediff Special/Yogesh Pawar



If fear had a face, it could be Razia`s. This five-year-old resident of Maangley village in Shirala tehsil (block) of Sangli district in western Maharashtra keeps tugging at her freshly pierced nose-ring. The subdued pain, perhaps, helps her deflect her attention from the gruesome reality around.

On October 9, her 70-year-old grandfather, Zainuddin Sutar, was burnt alive by a mob of 150 men from the same village in the family-owned sawmill. ``She hasn`t spoken since. She was very close to him,`` says Razia`s father Akhlak Sutar (32).

Trouble first came calling on this village of 35,000 on August 30 following the desecration of a Ganesh idol kept at the local taalim (rural gymnasium with a wrestling pit).

On September 2, police picked up local wrestler Yunus Mussa Sheikh despite protests from the family that he didn`t have the keys to the taalim and thus could not have been involved in the act. ``All three boys who have the keys to the gym are Hindus,`` said Yunus`s childhood friend and neighbour Vishal Suryawanshi.

Sheikh`s arrest strained relations between the two communities. Stray incidents of stone-pelting followed. The target every time was Muslim houses.

Curfew was imposed in the village under section 141 of the IPC and additional forces were deployed. The curfew was relaxed after a couple of days and a peace committee was constituted. Some 70 villagers were picked up for rioting. All but two of them were soon out on bail.

For some reason, not one Muslim found representation on the peace committee. Assistant Police Inspector S Katke, who oversaw the formation of the committee, told rediff.com: ``We left it to the villagers... none from among the Muslims volunteered to be on the committee.``

While the police claim that calm was restored in the village after the constitution of the peace committee, that is not what actually happened.

A gram sabha (a gathering of male heads of all families in the village) was called on September 8 at the village Datta Mandir to discuss the desecration.

Muslim families remember how a mediæval-style town crier went around announcing that it was incumbent on all adult Muslim males to attend. ``We were asked to change from our traditional skullcaps to phetas and shave off our beards before we entered the temple,`` recounted Rafique Sayyed, who, along with seven others, followed the dictate.

Nine Muslims, who came to the temple unshaven and without the recommended change of attire, were taken to a barber and forcibly made to undergo a shave. The sabha later decreed that Yunus Sheikh`s family would have to leave the village within a week.

Dr Mahadeo Bapa, a local doctor who chaired the sabha, claims the Sheikhs volunteered to leave the village. ``We were touched. The meeting ended with the Hindus honouring the Muslims with turban lengths and hugs,`` he told rediff.com ``We even promised to give the Sheikhs a formal farewell.``

While the 40-odd Muslim families in the village put up with this, one youth, Riyaz Sutar (25), while visiting relatives in Mahad in Raigad district, sent a complaint to the state Minorities Commission in Bombay.

News of the arrival of the commission`s team in the nearby district town of Sangli angered the Hindus in the village.

The commission`s chairman, Ameen Khandwani, led a fact-finding team to Maangley. ``We were told that the situation could worsen if we conducted the inquiry in the village and we decided to summon those whom we wanted to meet to Sangli,`` Khandwani explained. He denied that this was done to get only the Muslim side of the story, as is being alleged by Hindus.

Interestingly, after several witnesses corroborated Riyaz Sutar`s complaint, a letter was given to the commission signed by Muslims denying that anything had happened in the village.

Probably scared of retaliation, the Muslims in the village took the same stand initially during our visit. Only after being assured that we had not been sent by the police did they open up.

``We have no one to speak for us,`` wept Salim Sheikh. ``If the police can ill-treat you [both I and photographer Jewella Miranda were detained and grilled for over two hours by the police before we were allowed to speak to the villagers], imagine our plight.``

Salim Sheikh said that even the local masjid is now out of bounds for them. ``With so much trouble, who will stick his neck out by wanting to go there to pray?`` he said.

On October 9, a canard provided the spark that caused this inflammable situation to explode. While the source remains unknown, the canard said: ``The government has prevailed upon the police to go by the Minority Commission`s findings. While Hindus involved in stone-throwing are going to be picked up, Yunus Sheikh will be set free.``

The police had reduced security only a day before. The deputy superintendent of police (Shirala) claimed this was done because there were no violent incidents after the curfew was relaxed.

But in the night of October 9, over 3,000 men armed with swords, staves and torches gathered at the village ground raising provocative slogans. They then went on to systematically burn down every shop and establishment owned by Muslims in the village. They even tried to break into the Sheikh residence, where two constables were on duty.

The constables were attacked, but when one of them fired in the air with his gun, the mob moved towards the sawmill and timber shop owned by the Sutars. Septuagenarian Zainuddin Sutar, who used to sleep in the shop, came out to plead with the mob. But he was bodily thrown into a bonfire made of the timber stored in the mill.

``We could hear his cries,`` says Riyaz Ahmed, 24. ``But going out to help him would have been suicidal.`` Ahmed`s family is contemplating leaving the village. ``We have nothing left. What will my family eat?`` His voice choking, he leaves the room abruptly.

Ahmed`s neighbour Abbas Alam Sheikh has abandoned his house and is living with relatives in Karad, a nearby town. The tractor and a Hero Honda bike the family owned have been left behind.

The Minorities Commission, in its report to the state government, has passed strictures against the police and accused the law enforcers of having a ``communal bend of mind``. The commission also believes that Yunus Mussa Sheikh was picked up without any proof of his involvement in the desecration of the idol.

But Hindus in the village believe the commission is siding with the Muslims because that is the politically correct thing to do.

``Where was the government and the police when we made a complaint about the desecration?`` retorted Parshuram Prahlad Ankush Patil, 38. ``It took them five days to pick up the accused. And when one Muslim makes a complaint to the Minorities Commission they come in their red-Klamex cars and try to teach us secularism. Do you call this justice?``

The defiant man added, ``It was this attitude of humbling us in front of the Muslims, which saw this eruption. If there is anyone to blame for whatever happened it is Yunus Sheikh, Riyaz Sutar and the Minorities Commission.``

Social Welfare Minister Jaywant Gangaram Awale, guardian for Sangli district, argued that the media would only feed the fire by reporting such events. ``The district collector and the superintendent of police have been in touch with me,`` he said. ``I could not find the time to visit the village owing to my busy schedule, but I will definitely go in a day or two.``

Sangli Collector Hanumant Pawar too `advised` us to leave the villagers alone. ``We are trying to take care of it,`` he claimed. ``Involving the media can only worsen the situation. Things are under control.``

Reassuring words for the authorities, but not enough to calm the frayed nerves of Maangley`s Muslims. ``Even our children are not spared. They are told they belong to Pakistan,`` Jubeda Rizvi told us. ``I will not send my son Hussain back to school. Who knows? Anything can happen in this kind of atmosphere.``

If Mr. Makhfi is an Indian he has made India proud by being the only featured writer on an anti India website.

Question is is he Indian? First I thought sadna was paranoid. Now, she may be right.

Next we will get articles from Nasim Zehra living in Chandigarh.

Zafar #147, friend #137 gowardhan #136

Mr Makhfi seems bonafide, at least for the last few years. I found his other articles (one on Ayodhya another on Kashmir)having valid points of view except for his abysmal ignorance of Hinduism and Hindu religious point of view. As friend says, well whats new?

`` A study of the Hindu history reveals that the temple worship was an alien of practice. None of the scriptures refer to them or lay on Hindus the duty of going to temple for worship of an image.``

Re the Kashmir article, he seemed to espouse a pro-Pakistani view, not necessarily a pro-Kashmiri one, definately an anti-India view.

I donot agree with him, but well, hsi views are valid if biased views.

Its in this article that he could have made valid points by being more authentic and factual. Maybe the main reason is that he was writing not for an Indian audience or fellow Indian Muslims, but for a website(Media Monitors Network) with a worldwide(maybe mostly Pakistani) audience where there is no percentage in espousing balanced views about India, which is not a Muslim-majority country and hence can be nothing but the enemy.

So I`ll repeat what I said earlier, the larger agendas in operation or ideologies of hatred including Hindutva and Pukis and the worldwide sense of disenfranchisement among Muslims are preventing objective and factual airing of Indian Muslim problems, even by some Indian Muslims.

If the author were interacting, we could ask him about it ..

ali1 #133
pl. pl can I be coherent? The way Pukis have been going into Afghanistan and killing Afghans of the wrong color of turban in their thousands for the last 5-10 years, thats what we Hindus plan for Pukistan.

Zafar #156
mithuna posted that earlier and I found this incident totally pathetic and tragic. Firstly, the local community not being impartial in assigning blame. Secondly, asking the Muslims to shave their beards as a condition for compromise?? What sort of debasement is that. Thirdly going on a rampage after the Minorities Commission stepped into the picture.. I wonder what lessons if any, are being learnt for the future by all institutions involved.

This is the sort of thing which must get indepth coverage on Indian TV and discussed in all its aspects, without inflaming passions further ofcourse.

Sadna:

“This leads me to believe that the author cannot have been in India for very long(if he is in India at all), he seems to have recently migrated(if at all) to India from a country which doenot report Indian news in any authentic way and bans Indian movies. Now which country can that be? Let me think.”

…please, let’s get one thing straight….indian movies are NOT banned in pakistan…..granted, they aren’t allowed to be showed in cinemas…(although, i recently read an article where this idea was being floated around….) but they are not banned….go to any music shop….75% of the times they’ll have music from indian movies blaring at earsplitting levels…..not to mention walls plastered with posters of the latest bollywood releases….

….and sadna, yes the biased, prejudiced and bigoted pakistani media is incomparable to the just, impartial and equitable indian media…the greatest thing since velcro….sliced bread even, right?

Reply Gowardhan # 134

“Next Jihadi assault will be on trees for using green for their leaves without asking Mr. Makhfi for permission. Those leaves fall and people walk on them!!! (my heart breaks). Dirty Kufr have bribed trees.”

What next, war on spinach? I don’t think the Punjabis among us will stand for that.

(Btw, have you warned Ally McBoofoo that his use of green – that colour again! – vegetables to adorn his verbal abuse of chowkistas is bound to get him into trouble with his country’s Mullahlog. – and they already don’t like him because of his name, taubah…)

Reply Ali1 # 133

“I am surprised that the Indian pseudo seclarists can say this with a straight face. Miyaji, your hindu fundamentalist Prime Minister has declared that the construction of ram mandir at the site of the destroyed masjid is the ``national will``. VHP has declared several times that it will build the mandir REGARDLESS of the supreme court verdict.”

Yeah yeah yeah Ally McBoofoo, but then tell me: why isn’t a temple built on the site yet? It’s been about ten years since the masjid was knocked down by goons – if the Indian Government doesn’t give a toss about operating within the law why isn’t there a Ram Mandir there NOW?

Kya kaha? Trying to change the subject? Hoping that hiding behind a gaali will work?

No, I didn’t think you were honest enough to answer the question.

tahmed 100,

I am one of the few on chowk directly affected by the WTC attack, I am fired by morgan stanley, nearly half of our fleet are on the ground, and who needs an engine specialist when the engines are not running, and th silly bas/tards know that I have no where to go.

In situation like this a typical pakistani would have cited all his direct experience and made a bafoon of himself on chowk, like my friend ramair based on the first hand knowledge.

But in any case it doent make any damn difference, job, no-job, life death, poverty hunger, life is a mystery.

But jihad is no mystery