Every time there is a blast in some part of the country, there is a tendency to suspect the entire Muslim community. Soon, almost inevitably, some suspects are picked up with routine fanfare. The ‘official version' is also inevitably bought lock, stock and barrel by a happy and lazy media which does not really conduct objective investigations into police allegations. However, eyebrows are also raised at the swiftness of such self-claimed ‘breakthroughs' by intelligence and security agencies, which makes one wonder what they were doing before the blasts took place.
During the entire episode and ‘process', the overriding theme is that the Muslim community in general and Islam in particular is responsible for international violence and terrorism, including in India. George Bernard Shaw had once said, "Islam is the best religion with worst followers." In contrast, the dominant ‘anti-Muslim' stereotype seems determined to alter Bernard Shaw's statement and prove that Islam is the worst religion with the worst followers.
Clearly, the larger Indian Muslim community has been terribly uncomfortable with this ‘brand image' of absolute condemnation. This is also because the community is strikingly and originally Indian, as is the language Urdu which was born in India. Besides, Muslims as Indian citizens are not the same in terms of homogenous identities, language, social fabric or culture: Muslims are different in different regions of India and share classically original characteristics. And certainly, ‘sufism' is a synthesis of several religions - so deeply linked with the Bhakti movement. That is why, its followers transcend all caste, class and religions.
More so, they chose to remain with the secular republic of India - post Partition. So much so, many ‘came away' from the new born ‘theocratic' Pakistan to live in ‘secular, democratic' India. That is, over the next six decades since Independence, in every constitutional, social and political manner, including the highest standards of patriotism, pluralism, secular and national identity, the Indian Muslim community stands equal and in unity with every other caste, ethnic, linguistic, regional or religious community in India.
This is the deep discomfort with the current ‘branding' and stereotyping of the Muslims, especially in terms of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. And the persecution, if not always, but largely considered as randomly predictable and totally unjust, outside all norms of natural or constitutional justice. So why should Indian Muslims be again and again asked to prove their patriotism?
Therefore and logically, recent months have witnessed a spate of seminars, public meetings, rallies, collective discussions and press conferences organised by various Muslim groups publicly denouncing terrorism and insisting that it has no relation with Islam. These gatherings have sometimes been shared by tens of thousands of people from across India, especially the Hindi heartland, as seen recently in Delhi.
These ‘anti-terrorism meetings' are of considerable significance. They clearly indicate the unfortunate predicament of the Muslim community which has been unfairly singled out, both in India and elsewhere, as being inherently associated with terrorism. It is a sign of the massive, and still mounting, wave of Islamophobia, propelled by western, Zionist, neo-con American and Hindutva, forces, which is increasingly pushing ordinary Muslims, and their organisations, to the wall. No other community is being forced to explain itself and absolve itself of charges of ‘terrorism' in even remotely the same way, although, clearly, ‘terrorism' is not specifically a ‘Muslim' issue.
In February this year, a fatwa against terrorism was issues from Deoband -- a 150-year-old seminary, the second-most important institute of Islamic learning on earth after the prestigious Al-azhar University in Cairo. (Contrary to the popular misconception - a fatwa is born of a larger collective consensus and issued by a religious head. It is not individual ‘orders' or declaration by sundry chieftains -- they have no sanctity). Indeed, the text of the Deoband fatwa stands in continuity with the nationalist tradition of this seminary. The fatwa, while condemning the attitude of Indian security forces in their profiling of Muslims, reiterated its belief in the Indian Constitution and the secular democratic space for pluralist debate and dialogue that it provides.
Maulana Hussain Madni, the then rector of Darul Uloom had, in 1940, penned an essay in which he had countered the claims of the Muslim League that Indian nationalism stands synonymous with Hindu nationalism. Madni had tried to counter RSS propaganda that Muslims can never be loyal to India because of their extra-territorial loyalty to Saudi Arabia, where the Mecca is situated. He had also argued that India holds a revered place in Islamic tradition and that every Indian Muslim should be proud to belong to this country and work for the welfare and unity of India. No wonder, Madni's Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind (JUH), formed in 1919, participated in the freedom movement, went to jail, made sacrifices, and chose to endorse the secular republic of India.
VD Savarkar, in his book written in 1923, used the concept of
To counter these arguments, Madni wrote that just as earlier it was the Aryans, Greeks and Huns who had come to India and made it their home, so did the early Muslims. In fact, he argues, Muslims can be more legitimately said to be the original inhabitants of India, as the majority of Indian Muslims are converts from communities that were in India even before the Aryans came. Madni had tried to use both spiritual and temporal narratives to prove that Indian Muslims were as patriotic as anybody else. He tried to narrow down the ‘self' and ‘other' distinctions between Muslims and Hindus, which was aggravated by the conservative parties of both religions - the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha.
Prominent Muslim authorities, academics, journalists, writers, activists, and groups and individuals in the civil society, have never refrained from criticising acts of terror and also the ease with which Islam is linked to these acts. However, when such a denouncement comes in the form of a religious fatwa from an institute of as great a standing as the Darul Uloom in Deoband, it has more intrinsic and public value. It just can't be brushed aside as rhetoric. As historian Dileep Simeon, senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Library, says, such acts will help in changing the public perception towards Muslims and Islam. Also, it will reduce the Islamophobia being propelled by the West. Communal forces will find it difficult to accuse Muslim clerics ritualistically.
And the Indian Muslim community is firmly behind such progressive moves. In May 2008, Delhi witnessed a massive rally at the Ramlila grounds organised by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind (JUH). The highlight of this rally, termed a ‘global anti-terrorism conference' was another fatwa against terrorism, issued by the clerics of Darul Uloom. Its seven point declaration stated:
Of all the terrorism cliches, ‘' is perhaps the one that has been used most mindlessly to project Islam as a religion promoting terror. The rhetoric has been used by the spokepersons of the Sangh Parivar to corner the Muslim community and hold them responsible for every act of terror. In stark contrast to such rhetoric, however, there are only 41 verses in the on . In the early 20th century, Islamic scholar Maulvi Chiragh Ali wrote , in which he tabulated and analysed each verse of the that was relevant and showed that not even once was the word used to promote war or violence.
The real problem is that one fails to distinguish between the theological and political. Some Muslims had their own political interests in mind when they conveniently invoked the doctrine of , as do many terrorist outfits in our times. The JUH, in its May declaration, pointed out the nuances, " and Islam. Terrorism causes pain and terror among people; it causes loss of life; it paralyses the social and political system. Therefore, the misinterpretation of must be avoided."
Eminent sociologist Imtiaz Ahmad sees these rallies as an attempt on the part of the Indian ulema to counter the wrong public perception about Muslims. According to him, Indian security forces have played a major role in creating this perception, as it presumes that Muslims are a priori potential terrorists till they are able to prove it otherwise.
However, Ahmad sees a political side to these rallies as well. "For last few years, Muslim clerics have been politically marginalised. Many clerics did not get party tickets. These rallies are the only way they could throw their weight around." Ahmad is critical of the profiling being done by the Indian law enforcement and security system. He thinks terrorism has never attracted Indian Muslims because the Indian State has been considerate to the minorities. Muslims feel they have a space for debate and dialogue, which is assured constitutionally. He is of the view that these rallies, conferences and declarations by Muslim organisations prove that Indian Muslims inherently believe that issues can be negotiated democratically.
Siraj Qureshi, president of the All India Jamiat ul Quresh, who also held one such rally on May 11, reiterated his belief in the democratic space for debate and dialogue provided by the Indian political system. On the issue of terrorism, he believes there should be debate and the roots of terrorism should be traced. The government should address the reasons that give rise to terrorism.
Terrorism as an issue has been used for political gains by rightist organisations in India. BJP has used the rhetoric of terrorism and linked it to Islam for the polarisation of its Hindutva vote bank. Zafrul Islam Khan, editor of the , believes that after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the BJP needed a new issue for its communal politics. Hence it used terrorism. This phenomenon reached its peak while the BJP was in power in the mid- and late-1990s, and Muslim youths were picked up indiscriminately after every act of terrorism. The Gujarat genocide was one such organised, State-sponsored project - termed as a ‘successful experiment' by VHP hardliners. All this helped the BJP in polarising voters on communal lines.
Another main reason is the failure on the part of the Muslim leadership in countering the tide of such accusations. The recent anti-terrorism meetings now show that the Muslim religious leadership is fast waking up to the need to reach out to an audience beyond that of their own followers, in particular non-Muslims, and to explain their stance. Javed Anand, editor of , sees such rallies and declarations as the best effort to counter false accusations. These efforts will help counter deeply embedded communal prejudices. Anand says that such collective endeavours are welcome even if they have a political motive behind them.
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