Muslims' dilemma: how to find voice in Modi's India
MODI AND MUSLIMS
NONGMAITHEM VIKRAM SINGH/CATCH NEWS
ADITYA MENON
The appeal
- The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has appealed to Muslim organisations and imams to unit against Hindutva forces.
- It says 'Brahmin Dharma and Vedic culture' are out to harm Islamic beliefs.
- The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has appealed to Muslim organisations and imams to unit against Hindutva forces.
- It says 'Brahmin Dharma and Vedic culture' are out to harm Islamic beliefs.
The insecurity
- Narendra Modi's victory has disappointed minorities. Many hold him responsible for the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat.
- His rise has emboldened Hindutva forces. Victimisation of minorities seems to have increased in the last one year.
- Muslims gave their allegiance to India in 1947, based on the promise that it would be secular state. Is that changing under Modi?
- Narendra Modi's victory has disappointed minorities. Many hold him responsible for the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat.
- His rise has emboldened Hindutva forces. Victimisation of minorities seems to have increased in the last one year.
- Muslims gave their allegiance to India in 1947, based on the promise that it would be secular state. Is that changing under Modi?
The dilemma
- There is a leadership vacuum among Muslims. The community is also short of political choices.
- There is disillusionment with 'secular' parties like Congress, which failed to stop Modi.
- Asaduddin Owaisi's MIM is trying to fill this vacuum.
- BJP is also trying to reach out to sections of the Muslim community.
Indian Muslims are at a crossroad. This can be seen in three separate events in the recent past - the All India Muslim Personal Law Board's (AIMPLB) appeal to unite against Hindutva forces, the rise of Asaduddin Owaisi's Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen in the country political landscape, and the BJP's attempts to woo a section of Muslim clerics.
The AIMPLB's appeal is significant. In a letter, it has urged Muslim organisations, institutions and imams of mosques to resist the rising influence of "Brahmin Dharma and Vedic culture (that) are out to harm Islamic beliefs by all means".
Critics would say that the Board is being unnecessarily alarmist and, even worse, fostering resentment among Muslims by pushing the 'Islam is in danger' narrative. It might also be making the mistake of conflating 'Vedic culture' with the Hindutva brigade.
This is not the AIMPLB's first attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In March this year, they forced Modi aide Zafar Sareshwala, who isn't a Board member, to leave their meeting. They are also said to have spurned his effort to arrange a meeting between the Board and the PM. Sareshwala is a key player in Modi's outreach towards the Muslim community.
- There is a leadership vacuum among Muslims. The community is also short of political choices.
- There is disillusionment with 'secular' parties like Congress, which failed to stop Modi.
- Asaduddin Owaisi's MIM is trying to fill this vacuum.
- BJP is also trying to reach out to sections of the Muslim community.
Indian Muslims are at a crossroad. This can be seen in three separate events in the recent past - the All India Muslim Personal Law Board's (AIMPLB) appeal to unite against Hindutva forces, the rise of Asaduddin Owaisi's Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen in the country political landscape, and the BJP's attempts to woo a section of Muslim clerics.
The AIMPLB's appeal is significant. In a letter, it has urged Muslim organisations, institutions and imams of mosques to resist the rising influence of "Brahmin Dharma and Vedic culture (that) are out to harm Islamic beliefs by all means".
Critics would say that the Board is being unnecessarily alarmist and, even worse, fostering resentment among Muslims by pushing the 'Islam is in danger' narrative. It might also be making the mistake of conflating 'Vedic culture' with the Hindutva brigade.
This is not the AIMPLB's first attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In March this year, they forced Modi aide Zafar Sareshwala, who isn't a Board member, to leave their meeting. They are also said to have spurned his effort to arrange a meeting between the Board and the PM. Sareshwala is a key player in Modi's outreach towards the Muslim community.
Does the AIMPLB have a point?
Narendra Modi's ascent as the Prime Minister of India is a watershed event for India's Muslims post-Independence. Many Muslims view Modi as being responsible for the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002. His victory has compelled not just Muslims, but other minorities and even liberals to fear the end of secularism in India.
Modi himself may have made several public statements in the recent past about his intention to stand by the Constitution and ensure every community feels secure. However, his rise has emboldened the larger Hindutva brigade.
Take these instances - Sanjay Raut calling for Muslims to be disenfranchised; Yogi Adityanath's anti Muslim rants; Muslims in Ballabhgarh being displaced from their houses and even being denied access to a mosque; a Muslim employee at Maharashtra Sadan being forcibly fed during Ramzan; a Muslim techie in Pune being killed just because of his religion; Muslims being denied jobs or a place to rent - and it becomes very difficult not to feel that Muslims are being victimised in Modi's India.
Narendra Modi's ascent as the Prime Minister of India is a watershed event for India's Muslims post-Independence. Many Muslims view Modi as being responsible for the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002. His victory has compelled not just Muslims, but other minorities and even liberals to fear the end of secularism in India.
Modi himself may have made several public statements in the recent past about his intention to stand by the Constitution and ensure every community feels secure. However, his rise has emboldened the larger Hindutva brigade.
Take these instances - Sanjay Raut calling for Muslims to be disenfranchised; Yogi Adityanath's anti Muslim rants; Muslims in Ballabhgarh being displaced from their houses and even being denied access to a mosque; a Muslim employee at Maharashtra Sadan being forcibly fed during Ramzan; a Muslim techie in Pune being killed just because of his religion; Muslims being denied jobs or a place to rent - and it becomes very difficult not to feel that Muslims are being victimised in Modi's India.
A broken agreement?
Even during the peak of the Pakistan movement, a majority of the Muslim clerics in India were not in favour of Partition.
This position was best articulated by Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind leader Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani in his treatise Muttahida Qaumiyat aur Islam (Composite Nationalism and Islam). He disagreed with the Muslim League's assertion that Muslims were a separate nation.
He maintained that Muslims are a religious community and not a nation. And if Muslims are a nation, then such a nation should include all the Muslims in the world, not just the Indian sub-continent.
He believed that rather than a separate country, a State with religious freedom would be a more desirable option for India's Muslims. The belief was that Muslims are more likely to get the freedom to follow their personal laws in Congress-ruled India rather than Muhammad Ali Jinnah's Pakistan.
The Constitution of India represented a Mua'hadah or agreement for the Jamiat. The analogy was with Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)'s contract with the Jews of Madinah. The clauses of the deal were that India would always remain a secular country and Muslims would have the right to practice and propagate their religion and follow their personal laws.
In return, Muslim clerics remained politically quiescent and by and large supportive of the establishment.
Even though the Jamiat did not claim to represent all Indian Muslims, this 'agreement' shaped the trajectory of Muslim politics in post-Independence India, whereby Muslim clerics and religious organisations by and large kept away from active politics in return for freedom in the religious sphere.
With Modi's rise and the accompanying belligerence of the Hindutva brigade, there is a feeling that the ruling dispensation has reneged on its part of the agreement.
The issue is also ideological. Hindutva ideologues like Vinayak D Savarkar, whom the BJP glorifies, saw Hindus not just as a religious community but as a nation. Muslims, or any other minorities for that matter, don't have a place in such a idea of the Indian nation.
Even during the peak of the Pakistan movement, a majority of the Muslim clerics in India were not in favour of Partition.
This position was best articulated by Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind leader Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani in his treatise Muttahida Qaumiyat aur Islam (Composite Nationalism and Islam). He disagreed with the Muslim League's assertion that Muslims were a separate nation.
He maintained that Muslims are a religious community and not a nation. And if Muslims are a nation, then such a nation should include all the Muslims in the world, not just the Indian sub-continent.
He believed that rather than a separate country, a State with religious freedom would be a more desirable option for India's Muslims. The belief was that Muslims are more likely to get the freedom to follow their personal laws in Congress-ruled India rather than Muhammad Ali Jinnah's Pakistan.
The Constitution of India represented a Mua'hadah or agreement for the Jamiat. The analogy was with Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)'s contract with the Jews of Madinah. The clauses of the deal were that India would always remain a secular country and Muslims would have the right to practice and propagate their religion and follow their personal laws.
In return, Muslim clerics remained politically quiescent and by and large supportive of the establishment.
Even though the Jamiat did not claim to represent all Indian Muslims, this 'agreement' shaped the trajectory of Muslim politics in post-Independence India, whereby Muslim clerics and religious organisations by and large kept away from active politics in return for freedom in the religious sphere.
With Modi's rise and the accompanying belligerence of the Hindutva brigade, there is a feeling that the ruling dispensation has reneged on its part of the agreement.
The issue is also ideological. Hindutva ideologues like Vinayak D Savarkar, whom the BJP glorifies, saw Hindus not just as a religious community but as a nation. Muslims, or any other minorities for that matter, don't have a place in such a idea of the Indian nation.
A leadership vacuum among Muslims
For any minority community, the most desirable scenario is if identity ceases to be a major part of politics. But if that doesn't happen, the well-being of the minority community depends on the ability of the friendly sections of the majority to keep the hostile sections at bay.
While putting forward his idea of composite nationalism, Madani believed, perhaps a little naively, that in Independent India, religion would cease to be associated with nationhood. The arrangement worked well so long as the Congress, in the early decades after Independence, remained the dominant party and tried to keep communal politics consigned to the fringes.
But with the rise of the BJP, Muslims were left with little option but to support any party in the best position to defeat it: be it the Congress or the Janata Dal and its breakaways like the Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal.
The AIMPLB's appeal to 'resist Brahmin Dharma and Vedic Culture' must be seen in this context as it's also an attempt to reach out to Dalits, tribals and backward castes.
Even in this respect, the 2014 General Elections were a watershed event with the near complete decimation of secular parties in North India at the hands of Modi's BJP. So the crisis for Muslims is also one of political choice: whom should the community support?
There are voices in the community which say that Muslims should stop pinning their hopes on secular parties which failed to stop Modi from becoming PM. The most prominent among them is MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi, who has asserted vociferously that "Muslims are not the coolies of secularism".
The rise of MIM in the last one year is based on a simplistic, but tempting reading of the 2014 elections: that Muslims voted for secularism while Hindus voted for Hindutva.
Unfortunately, this situation gives greater voice to the most conservative elements - in the process, doing the same disservice to Muslims that Hindutva ideologues do to the average Hindu.
Rather than protecting the idea of a secular polity, where religious identity should not be the dominant marker of citizenship, the conversation is ceded to the most regressive interlocutors on both sides.
For any minority community, the most desirable scenario is if identity ceases to be a major part of politics. But if that doesn't happen, the well-being of the minority community depends on the ability of the friendly sections of the majority to keep the hostile sections at bay.
While putting forward his idea of composite nationalism, Madani believed, perhaps a little naively, that in Independent India, religion would cease to be associated with nationhood. The arrangement worked well so long as the Congress, in the early decades after Independence, remained the dominant party and tried to keep communal politics consigned to the fringes.
But with the rise of the BJP, Muslims were left with little option but to support any party in the best position to defeat it: be it the Congress or the Janata Dal and its breakaways like the Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal.
The AIMPLB's appeal to 'resist Brahmin Dharma and Vedic Culture' must be seen in this context as it's also an attempt to reach out to Dalits, tribals and backward castes.
Even in this respect, the 2014 General Elections were a watershed event with the near complete decimation of secular parties in North India at the hands of Modi's BJP. So the crisis for Muslims is also one of political choice: whom should the community support?
There are voices in the community which say that Muslims should stop pinning their hopes on secular parties which failed to stop Modi from becoming PM. The most prominent among them is MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi, who has asserted vociferously that "Muslims are not the coolies of secularism".
The rise of MIM in the last one year is based on a simplistic, but tempting reading of the 2014 elections: that Muslims voted for secularism while Hindus voted for Hindutva.
Unfortunately, this situation gives greater voice to the most conservative elements - in the process, doing the same disservice to Muslims that Hindutva ideologues do to the average Hindu.
Rather than protecting the idea of a secular polity, where religious identity should not be the dominant marker of citizenship, the conversation is ceded to the most regressive interlocutors on both sides.
Modi's Muslims
The BJP also senses the vacuum among Muslims and is trying to reach out to sections of the community. Its aim isn't so much to win Muslim votes, which it realises it can't beyond a point. Rather, the BJP wants to create multiple voices within Muslims in order to prevent a consolidation against itself.
This is a strategy the BJP has been working at on a long term basis. During the UPA's second tenure, the Ajit Doval-headed Vivekananda International Foundation organised a number of events and seminars with Barelvi and Shia Muslim leaders on 'countering fundamentalism'.
This basically amounted to pitting Barelvis and Shias against Deobandi and Wahhabi Muslims.
It is not surprising that most of the Muslim leaders who met Narendra Modi in April this year happen to be Barelvis such as Syed Sultan-Ul-Hasan Chishti Misbahi (who claims to be the Sajjada Nashin, of the Ajmer Dargah), Allama Tasleem Raza Sahib from the Bareilly Dargah, Syed Abdul Rashid Ali of the Syed Shahid Dargah in Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh, Maulana Abu Bakr Basani of the Nagore Sharif Dargah, Rajasthan and Syed Ali Akbar of Taajpura Sharif, Chennai.
Significantly, Maulana Mehmood Madani of the Jamial Ulema-i-Hind has also begun making conciliatory noises towards the Modi government. He took a different view from the AIMPLB on the yoga controversy, saying that it was fine for Muslims to do the Surya Namaskar if it is modified in a way that the sun isn't worshipped. He has also said that Muslims should give the Modi government some more time.
The Student's Islamic Organisation, the student's wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, too seems to be cultivating the BJP. It began with the SIO leadership meeting with Sareshwala, which didn't raise too many eyebrows as Sareshwala happens to be the Chancellor of the Maulana Azad National Urdu University.
But the SIO didn't stop there. It organised a seminar on 'Communal Harmony and Nation Building' at Banaras Hindu University, for which it invited senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar, whose name had cropped up in connection with the Hindutva terror cases. Kumar didn't turn up, but SIO faced flak from many Muslim organisations and individuals.
The BJP also senses the vacuum among Muslims and is trying to reach out to sections of the community. Its aim isn't so much to win Muslim votes, which it realises it can't beyond a point. Rather, the BJP wants to create multiple voices within Muslims in order to prevent a consolidation against itself.
This is a strategy the BJP has been working at on a long term basis. During the UPA's second tenure, the Ajit Doval-headed Vivekananda International Foundation organised a number of events and seminars with Barelvi and Shia Muslim leaders on 'countering fundamentalism'.
This basically amounted to pitting Barelvis and Shias against Deobandi and Wahhabi Muslims.
It is not surprising that most of the Muslim leaders who met Narendra Modi in April this year happen to be Barelvis such as Syed Sultan-Ul-Hasan Chishti Misbahi (who claims to be the Sajjada Nashin, of the Ajmer Dargah), Allama Tasleem Raza Sahib from the Bareilly Dargah, Syed Abdul Rashid Ali of the Syed Shahid Dargah in Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh, Maulana Abu Bakr Basani of the Nagore Sharif Dargah, Rajasthan and Syed Ali Akbar of Taajpura Sharif, Chennai.
Significantly, Maulana Mehmood Madani of the Jamial Ulema-i-Hind has also begun making conciliatory noises towards the Modi government. He took a different view from the AIMPLB on the yoga controversy, saying that it was fine for Muslims to do the Surya Namaskar if it is modified in a way that the sun isn't worshipped. He has also said that Muslims should give the Modi government some more time.
The Student's Islamic Organisation, the student's wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, too seems to be cultivating the BJP. It began with the SIO leadership meeting with Sareshwala, which didn't raise too many eyebrows as Sareshwala happens to be the Chancellor of the Maulana Azad National Urdu University.
But the SIO didn't stop there. It organised a seminar on 'Communal Harmony and Nation Building' at Banaras Hindu University, for which it invited senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar, whose name had cropped up in connection with the Hindutva terror cases. Kumar didn't turn up, but SIO faced flak from many Muslim organisations and individuals.
Looking ahead
This churn within what has come to be known as 'Muslim politics' is likely to continue or even intensify in the near future. A major event to watch out for will be the Bihar elections.
If the RJD-JD(U)- Congress alliance manages to halt the BJP, it would be a major victory for 'secular' parties. This could check the MIM's expansion across the country and also put a break on Muslim clerics' flirtation with the BJP.
But if the BJP wins Bihar and Uttar Pradesh also falls in its kitty, it would be clear that Modi isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Ten years of the Hindutva brigade could change the nature of India as we know it, including the nation's relationship with its religious minorities. The Jamiat's Mua'hadah would then be in danger of becoming null and void.
This churn within what has come to be known as 'Muslim politics' is likely to continue or even intensify in the near future. A major event to watch out for will be the Bihar elections.
If the RJD-JD(U)- Congress alliance manages to halt the BJP, it would be a major victory for 'secular' parties. This could check the MIM's expansion across the country and also put a break on Muslim clerics' flirtation with the BJP.
But if the BJP wins Bihar and Uttar Pradesh also falls in its kitty, it would be clear that Modi isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Ten years of the Hindutva brigade could change the nature of India as we know it, including the nation's relationship with its religious minorities. The Jamiat's Mua'hadah would then be in danger of becoming null and void.
Courtesy- catchnews.com
Courtesy- catchnews.com
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