Last week, 2.8 billion Muslims all over the world were distressed and dismayed at the burning of the Holy Quran by a white supremacist Islamophobe in Sweden. Many Muslim countries and the OIC protested vehemently. That is all they can do. They have no courage to take military action and impose economic sanctions against Sweden. They shamelessly patronize IKEA and other Swedish companies.
The Almighty Creator and Protector of the Holy Quran — Allah SWT’s Miracle unfolded in a majestic way in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. The ‘Little Miracle’ Hafidha Syeda Sehreesh Mubeen, performed an unprecedented feat by memorizing the entire Holy Quran at the young age of 5 years and 7 months. She could be the youngest Hafidha in the world. The Guinness Book of World Records should find out and confirm this. This amazing achievement of Hafidha Sehreesh is a marvelous miracle of the Holy Quran. A student of Jamiatul Muminaat, the tiny Hafidha was guided by the Jamia’s Principal Hafidha Muftia, Dr. Rizwana Zareen, and the able team of teachers from the Department of Hifz at the Jamia.
The memorization of the entire Holy Quran at the tender age of 5 years and 7 months is a great pointer that even if all the physical copies of the Holy Quran are removed from this world, Muslims can reproduce the entire Quran correctly in no time. Allah SWT has taken upon Himself the responsibility to protect the Holy Quran. He protects the Quran in the hearts of Believing Muslims! No worldly power or evil can ever destroy the holy book.
Lunatic Islamophobes and hate mongers from Europe to India have taken to the burning of the Holy Quran. The world knows the fate of the Danish Islamophobe who burnt the Holy Quran in the Netherlands and perished in a fire in his own car, which got locked. Nobody could save him. Saffron Islamophobes, who have attacked mosques and burnt the Holy Quran during violent processions and riots in different parts of our country, have gone unpunished by the law. They should fear divine retribution! The ‘Little Miracle’ Hafidha Sehreesh Mubeen’s unparalleled achievement, is a sort of antidote to what happened in Sweden. Muslims should not just memorize the Holy Quran but follow it in all aspects of their lives, as it is a Complete Code of Life and provides solutions to all our needs, issues, and challenges!
One thing common among most authoritarian states in West as well as in East is that the ‘dissenters’ are seen as a threat to the establishment; hence, labeling them ‘extremists’ serves the authoritarian purpose. Being critical of the policies of the states become extremism. The policies adopted by most of these states lead to reinforcing the negative stereotypes about Muslims, as a result of which Muslims themselves do self-censoring.
‘Islamophobia’ is not a new term, neither is it a post 9/11 phenomenon as commonly thought. But ‘Domophilia’ as a concept is new. This term is coined by Prof Irfan Ahmad, Senior Research Fellow at The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany.
In his recent TEDx talk titled ‘Twins Unknown: Islamophobia and Domophilia,’ organized by the University of Göttingen, Germany he explained the complex intimacy between Domophilia and Islamophobia.
He begins his talk by sharing his experience that how public scholars like him have to deal with Islamophobia. In an interview that he gave to Huffington Post, he described the public lynching of Muslims and Dalits as ‘acts of terror’. While many appreciated his perspective, others attacked him with Islamophobic abuse. He was labeled a terrorist, Islamist, jihadist, communist, secularist, anti-national, anti-Hindu, traitor, scoundrel, and more. “These labels are stark examples of both Islamophobia and domophilia in the present we all inhabit”, says Irfan Ahmad.
Islamophobia and the New World Order
Prof Ahmad argues that Islamophobia emanates directly from the need for a new enemy of the New World Order.
To make his point, he quotes Samuel Huntington, who wrote in “the Clash of Civilizations” that “the underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam” and “Islam has bloody borders.”
Prof Ahmad explains that the end of the Cold War meant the death of the enemy, which during the Cold War was Communism. He argues that with the death of Communism as its prime enemy, the West needed a new enemy which the new world order, announced in 1991, fashioned it in the figure of ‘Islam’.
Islamophobia and Domophilia
Prof Ahmad observes, “the contention that Islamophobia is integral to the New World Order should be seen to the notions of home-making and love for home.” By the love for home, he means love for the nation – a love that borders on mania and is often pitted against an enemy or a series of enemies that most nation-states are built on.
Prof Ahmad argues that Islamophobia goes hand in hand with love for liberal-democratic nation-states, which he terms as domophilia.
“This notion of home/nation, and the coercive demand to love home informs the politics of Islamophobes such as Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, and several others”, contends Prof Ahmad.
According to him, this fantasy of the nation is driven by the idea of a pure, cozy home, which the heart is made to long for. Therefore, the nation as a home is unthinkable without its “other”, internal as well as external.
“The opposite of domo i.e., home, is the outsider or stranger called foris. The derivative domi in Latin means peace and is contrasted with militiae, meaning war. What connects home and outside is war,” he argues using linguistic and historical sources.
Citing the example of how Muslims are treated in India, he reminds us that the label of anti-national, deployed mainly against Muslims, serves the same purpose. “Anti-nationals are all those who do not love and worship India as a Hindu home.”
The unprecedented COVID-19 induced Lockdown in India revealed the Islamophobia of Indian media
Nationalization of Knowledge
In Prof Ahmad’s view, knowledge and disciplines have also become nationalists, manifest for example, in the names of some famous journals: Australian Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Sociology, German History, American Anthropologist, Contributions to Indian Sociology. Instead of historicizing and sociologizing the nation-state, under the impact of nationalism disciplines likeHistory and Sociology themselves became nationalists.
Even air, so basic to us all as humans to breathe, he argues, stands nationalized as evident from the names of airlines like Air France, Air India, British Airways, and Turkish Airlines.
Alternative to Domophilia
So, what is the alternative to the ever-increasing phenomenon of Domophilia and the obsession with home?
Prof Ahmad proposes the idea of a hostel.
He argues that unlike in a hotel there is a sense of solidarity and sociability in a hostel.
“I have spent nearly one-third of my life in hostels. I relish my time lived in hostels and feel attached to them. In short, my alternative of hostel is close to what anthropologist Arjun Appadurai describes as post-national belonging,” observes Prof. Ahmad.
Islamophobia and Domophilia in Indian Context
However, unlike Prof Ahmad’s argument about the deep connections between Islamophobia and Domophilia, many ‘liberals’ and ‘seculars’ in India believe that Islamophobia is a creation of “Islamist” and “Muslim apologist” scholars. Though they do not completely deny the existence ofIslamophobia, they maintain that it is somewhat exaggerated and entangled with the ‘victimhood politics’.
We talked to people from different walks of life to invite their opinion on ‘Islamophobia and Domophilia’ debate.
As is the case, in India no conversation on Muslims is complete without discussing Partition. So, it figures in discourses on Islamophobia too.
Young scholar and activists agree with Prof Ahmad
Afreen Fatima, a student activist, largely agrees with Prof Ahmad’s analysis. She sees Domophilia as similar to ultra-nationalism, which makes Muslims the ‘other’ and ‘foreigner’.
“Ultra-nationalism attempts at othering the Muslims and does not see them as a part of their home. There is still a pervasive feeling that Muslims are not original inhabitants of India and that they are descendants of Mughals. Not just this, Muslims are often told that they belong not to India but to Pakistan, which was created for Muslims.”
“However, there are different origins of Muslims in India: while some of our ancestors converted to Islam from different religions, others came from different parts of the world. But the idea persists that naturalization of Indian Muslims has not happened properly even today,” remarks Fatima.
“When you run out of an enemy, you find a new enemy; Muslims are the prey of the same hatred which existed before us. Earlier the xyz was an enemy but now this is us. It is not going to end with us. Once they are done with Muslims, they will find new enemies as hate knows no end,” she adds in a manner predicting the future.
Dr. Mohammad Reyaz, an Assistant Professor at Aliah University, Kolkata, uses the term “securitization”. He argues that disciplines like political science, international relations, and foreign policy have been securitized.
He points out how the army and border issues are used to silence the dissenters. He quotes one of the popular catchphrases by the comedian Kunal Kamra, “Siachen mein hamare jawaan lad rahe hain,” to explain how ‘communal politics and national security have been merged now’ in the post 9/11 era in India and how the catchphrases are used to hide the failures of the government. In India, it started with demonetization.
Like Prof Ahmad and Afreen do, he asserts that Islamophobia very much existed before 9/11 but afterward the states only got an excuse to justify it.
When viewed from the lens of securitization, political issues become only urgent security issues,labeled alarmingly as ‘dangerous’, ‘menacing’, ‘threatening’, and so on.
Dr. Reyaz reminds us how the anti-CAA protestors who were protesting to save the Constitution and demand their Constitutional rights were portrayed as a threat to ‘national security’.
‘Every policy is now linked to national security. Perpetual security threat is created by the state to justify its weaknesses and failures,’ observes Dr. Reyaz.
The chargesheets against Umar Khalid, Khalid Saifi, Tahir Hussain, and others can be understood within the ambit of securitization theory. In this theory, they allegedly wanted to defame India during the Donald Trump visit. Interestingly, and ironically, the NE Delhi riots or pogroms have been linked with anti-CAA protests.
The demonization of Tablighi Jamaat during the unprecedented COVID-19 induced Lockdown in India revealed Islamophobia and it’s relation to securitization. Our media took no time in referring to Jamaatis as carriers of “corona bomb”. An individual becomes a potential “bomb” which makes it super easy for the state machinery to arrest and call him/her a “terrorist” and subsequently arrest and torture them.
On the tendency of criminalization of the victims, particularly Muslims, Tamanna Pankaj, a lawyer and Human Rights activist says, “If we look at the record of riots/pogroms in India, victims have been mostly Muslims since the independence.”
She cites the example of North East Delhi riots and says that those who are worst affected and devastated by the riots are being prosecuted and arrested. The lives, properties and businesses of Muslims have been targeted, yet the chargesheets have been filed against the victims themselves. But she says that the death records still can’t be changed.
Pankaj further notes that “the Supreme Court could have taken suo motu and these records of loss of lives and properties could have been taken up and analyzed by the court but it has failed the minorities of our country.”
She says that the Delhi police has clearly shown its Islamophobic attitude at the time of anti-CAA protests and Delhi riots. “Police officers were telling Muslims that this is not your country. I don’t think there can be a better example of Islamophobia than this, ” opines Pankaj.
Disagreements with Prof Ahmad
Disagreeing with the analysis of Prof Ahmad, Dr. Krishnaswamy Dara, an Assistant Professor at Jamia Millia Islamia, says, “Why loving nation-state is problematic and not loving your religion? If Domophilia is problematic, then, Islamophilia is equally wrong.”
He calls for critically evaluating the stance of “victimhood”.
“Jinnah and Muhammad Iqbal created tension between Islamophilia and domophilia which left Muslims in a dilemma to choose between the religion or land.”
On hostel as an alternative to domophilia, he says that hostels are even more communal.
“You don’t live there [in hostels] with your family members. Yes, you develop friendship and there’s a culture of sharing too. You get a common kitchen. But you don’t get to eat what you want because there is communism. There are problems in a home too. But hostel can never replace a home. In a hostel, people come closer (grouping) on the basis of religion, caste and region which creates a divide between them,” adds Dr. Dara.
Vibhuti Narayan Rai, a former IPS officer, calls many Muslim intellectuals “apologists”.
“If you live in a multicultural society, isn’t it the duty of Islam to convince and teach its believers to live in a multicultural, multilingual, and multi-ethnic society?”
He gives an example of how Muslim women insist to wear burqa in countries like Canada.
He says that any criticism of Islam becomes Islamophobia and that Islam is not as tolerant of critical thinking as Christianity is.
The reasons for the Denial of Islamophobia
As for the denial of Islamophobia, activist and JNU student Afreen Fatima refers to a conversation she had with a JNU Professor who held that Islamophobia was not yet a significant phenomenon in India.
“They mean that we Indians haven’t reached that level where Hijab is forcefully taken off and Muslim women barred from traveling freely. They are, therefore, waiting for this to happen”, Afreen observes grimly.
According to Afreen, there are two reasons for denying the existence of Islamophobia:
—They [‘liberal-secular’ intelligentsia] are not experiencing it first hand; so, they don’t understand it in the first place.
—They have their secure space where they live happily, with their identities and lifestyles un-challenged and un-threatened. “As far as it does not affect them directly, they do not want to speak out against it.”
Fatima says, “if one has an Urdu name, no matter what ideology or faith one believes in, no matter which ‘ism’ one is following, one will have to face problems and he or she will be attacked. It says a lot about Islamophobia.”
Shamsul Islam is a former professor of political science at the University of Delhi. He is known in academia as a leftist scholar. Apart from academics, he has also been involved in theatre and other cultural activities. He mostly writes on religious fundamentalism. His work on the RSS has been cited by many scholars. But the discussion here I would like to engage into is about his recent piece published almost simultaneously on two web portals. It is about the Tablighi Jamaat and its alleged role in spreading coronavirus. The Tablighi Jamaat—which is made of two Arabic words Tabligh (propagation) and Jamaat (group)—is an Islamic reform movement to teach the basic tenets of Islam to common Muslims and make them pious. Established by Maulana Ilyas, a Muslim religious scholar from Muzaffarnagar in U.P. in the 1920s, the Tablighi Jamaat is a group of Sunni Muslims, which has much common with Deoband school. Over the years it has become an international movement, though its branches work independently in different countries.
After reading Shamsul Islam’s article, one gets a feeling that the author has knowingly or unknowingly done great harm to the image of the Tablighi Jamaat and put fuel to the communal hatred against the minority Muslim community in India. Ever since the raid on the Tablighi Jamaat’s Markaz office in Delhi was done, the anti-Muslim feelings have swept the country, blaming them for being “carriers” of the deadly coronavirus.
More shocking is that the attack on the Tablighi Jamaat has come from a leftist scholar. A common Muslim look at a leftist scholar as a sympathizer, who is sensitive about the minority question. At a time when the Hindutva assault on the minority has intensified, Shamsul Islam’s article creates disappointment.
Let me begin with the summary of what he has said. First, he tried to imply that the organisations like the RSS, the Shuddhi Movement and the Tablighi Jamaat were established around 1925 with design. These organisations, in the name of shaping “good Muslims” and “good Hindus,” were trying to divide the people into religious lines at a time when they were fighting against the British colonial government. Second, the Tablighi Jamaat has been liked by the RSS as “good Muslims”. In other words, the RSS and the BJP have a tacit understanding with the Tablighi Jamaat. This is a tall statement because the very foundation of the RSS and the BJP is based on anti-Muslim politics. If the Tablighi Jamaat is close to the RSS and the BJP, then the Tablighi Jamaat is not the well-wishers of Muslims. Third, he seemed to be validating the Hindutva discourse that the Tablighi Jamaat was indeed carriers of coronavirus.
As a scholar, he can argue and he can criticise any organisation. But the claim and argument must be substantiated by solid evidence. This is where he has fallen short of the standard. His arguments appeared to be superficial and biased.
Let me start with his first claim. Was the Tablighi Jamaat established to divide people on religious lines? In other words, was it working for the British colonial government? In his writing, he threw such a wild allegation but he did not substantiate it with solid evidence. He just quoted a few lines from a speech of the revolutionary freedom fighter Ashfaqullah Khan (1900-1927): “Oh! How can we appreciate the present-day life when our political leadership is going through internal strife? If one is fond of Tableegh [the propagation of Islam] the other believe that dying for Shuddhi only will lead to emancipation”.
Khan’s statement criticized religious revivalist movements. It had to do with the rise of communal tension in the 1920s. For example, eminent historian Sumit Sarkar (Modern India) said that the Tabligh Jamaat came into a reaction of the shuddhi (purification) movement of the Arya Samaj and the Hindu Mahasabha. But even he did not jump to conclusions that the Tabligh Jamaat was a “baby” of the colonial British government. As Sarkar said,
It needs to be emphasized, however, that much of this was a reaction against the very rapid spread of Hindu communalism in those years. Tabligh and tanzim were in large part a response to Arya Samajist shuddhi and sangathan, started after the Moplah forcible conversions and extended in 1923 by Shraddhanand to western U.P. in a determined bid to win back for Hinduism Malkana Rajput, Gujar and Bania converts to Islam. The Hindu Mahasabha, started at the Hardwar Kumbh Mela in 1915 by Madan Mohan Malaviya along with some Punjabi leaders, had become practically defunct in the Non-Cooperation years. A major revival began from 1922-23, and the Banares session of August 1923, which incorporated the shuddhi programme and called for Hindu self-defence squads, represented an alliance of Arya Samajist reformers with Sanatan Dharma Sabha conservatives in a common Hindu-communal front presided over, as usual, by Malaviya (p. 235).
Like Sumit Sarkar, the writings of Islamic scholars of the Tablighi movement such as Syed Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadvi (Life and Mission of Maulana Mohammad Ilyas) and Maulana Wahiduddin Khan (Tablighi Tahreek) did mention the threat from the Shuddhi movement. But their histories of the Tablighi Jamaat not only gave no reference to its collaboration, which Shamsul Islam implied, with the British empire but also avoided political discussion. One limitation of their writings is, of course, narrating the history of the Tablighi Jamaat without much talking about the political and economic context. While reading them, I felt this gap. For example, how could the history of the Tabligh movement be told without discussing analysing the events like the mounting communal tension in the 1930s and the 1940s, leading to the Partition. This gap should be filled by taking up fresh research.
But without citing any solid evidence, Shamsul Islam alleged that the Tablighi Jamaat was working as an enemy of the freedom struggle. Is this not an act of intellectual dishonesty?
His clubbing together the RSS and the Tablighi Jamaat is also flawed. The RSS, though it claims to be a cultural organisation, is a political organization. It controls several wings. Its political outfit (the BJP) is the ruling party in India at present. Its militant wing (Bajrang Dal) is involved in anti-Muslim and anti-Christian riots. The RSS does majoritarian politics. Its ideologues were staunch anti-Muslims. The Tabligh Jamaat in India, contrary to them, works among the Muslim minority only, not the majority Hindus. It shuns politics. It has no military wing. It has never been accused of leading a riot or speaking against Hindus. As its stated policy, it deliberately avoids publicity and works without keeping any records or having a formal office. Its members are on the move all the time. In fact, it is meant to work among the common Muslims and teach them the basics of Islam. Knowing Kalimah (the creed of Islam), learning how to offer namaz (prayer), acquiring religious knowledge, respecting Muslims, withdrawing from worldly engagement for religious activities and purifying one’s intentions are some of the basic principles of the Tablighi Jamaat. Some accuse them that it is spreading superstition. But calling it a superstitious body is easy than proving it. Because there is a thin boundary between religion and superstition. Even the rationalists, who often criticise religion and faith, do not realise that their rationality is also conditioned by a particular framework.
But Shamsul Islam went much beyond this intellectual terrain and hurled accusation on the Tablighi Jamaat. He is free to agree or disagree with the Tablighi Jamaat’s ideology and method, but he is not justified to equate it with the RSS. Nor did he produce any evidence to call it an “agent” of the British government.
From here Shamsul Islam arrives at the conclusion that the Tablighi Jamaat was responsible for the Partition of India! As he put it, “The history of the freedom movement is witness to the fact that these organizations led to the aggressive currents of Hindu and Muslim separatism, finally, leading to the Partition of India”. Was the Tablighi Jamaat responsible for the division of the country? No. If he had read Maulana Azad’s work (India Wins Freedom), the Congress president in the 1940s, he would not have committed such a blunder. The Partition, as the Maulana concluded, was the result of the failure of the Congress to share power with the minority Muslims. He painfully described how Nehru and Sardar Patel turned cold. Finally, the Mahatma gave in to the demands of Pakistan.
From blaming the Tablighi Jamaat for dividing the people on religious lines and contributing to Partition, Shamsul Islam began to tamper with facts. It seems that he reached his conclusion much before beginning his research. As a result, he ended up maligning the image of the Tablighi Jamaat. He tried to imply that the Tablighi Jamaat and the RSS have a tacit understanding. He claims that the RSS and the BJP consider the Tablighi Jamaat as “good Muslims”: “TJ has always been on top of the list of ‘good Muslims’ (Rashtriya Muslims) of the RSS-BJP rulers”. But again, he gave no evidence.
In his attempt to establish the Tabligh Jamaat’s nexus with the RSS, he cited two examples. First, he said that the Tablighi Jamaat had not been vocal against the incidents of anti-Muslims riots. It maintained “silence” during Advani’s Rath Yatra (1990), demolition of Babri mosque (1992), and the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 and anti-CAA protest etc. In its defence, one could argue that the Tabligh Jamaat, as it has defined its goal to work among Muslims for bringing them close to the teachings of Islam, deliberately shuns politics. However, its members in their other sphere may participate in political activity. In other words, a Tablighi member can be a politician and he could do politics outside the sphere of the Tablighi Jamaat.
My purpose here is not to defend the Tablighi Jamaat. Nor am I here to say that it is free from controversies. Had Shamsul Islam paid close attention, he would have provided a much solid and internal critique of the Tabligh Jamaat. For example, not all Muslims are members of the Tablighi Jamaat. There are an intense debate and contestation among different schools and sects within Islam. For example, one of the common allegations levelled against the Tablighi Jamaat is that it is “depoliticising” Muslims. In its defence, the Tablighi Jamaat argues that it is not depoliticizing Muslims but making them pious and internally strong. Without the solid base (the piety of hearts), no edifice (no political system) can stand for long. On sectarian lines, there is a huge contestation about its functioning.
For example, two Sunni Muslim groups Barelwis and the Tablighi Jamaat often see each other as rivals. In 2001, a clash between the supporters of the Tablighi Jamaat and the Barelwis in Dahod (Gujarat) was reported in which a large number of Tabligh people were arrested by the police. It is often heard that the Barelwis have prohibited the entry of Tablighi Jamaat people into their mosques.
What is the difference between the Barelwis and Tablighi Jamaat? According to historian Usha Sanyal (Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi: In the Path of the Prophet), a group of Sunni Muslims were called Barelwis after the late 19th century scholar Ahmad Raza Khan. The term is derived from the north Indian city of Bareilly where Ahmad Riza Khan (1856-1921) was born. Barelwis embrace Sufism and Islamic mysticism, give importance to saintly mediators, believe in miracles and argue that the Prophet had the power of unseen. Some of their ideas are in clash with Deobandi Muslims, named after the Deoband seminary, and Ahl-e-Hadith. As far as the Tablighi Jamaat is concerned, a large group of its activists are graduates from Deoband and Nadwa seminaries.
Though Tablighi Jamaat is said be an international organisation, the reality is that has no centralised authority controlling everything. With time, the Tabligh Movement got split into several independent organisations, operating separately inside their countries. The Tablighi Movement is just inspiration for many other such organisations. For example, the Tablighi Jamaats in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are run separately. Though there is no centralized organisation, Nizamuddin Markaz, being the oldest where the movement was born, is perceived as a “spiritual” centre by a large group of members of the Tablighi Jamaats outside India.
Even within India, a tug of war is going on between two fractions of the Tablighi Jamaat. For example, in 2016 two groups, one led by Maulana Saad and the other by Maulana Zuhairul Hassan, physically attacked each other inside the Markaz after which the movement split in India. These internal contestations among the several groups of Muslims are conveniently ignored by the Hindutva forces because their main goal is to paint all Muslims with a broad brush. For Hindutva forces, Muslims have no difference. They are one. Shamsul Islam did not try to break the narrow framework.
Ignoring all these complexities, Shamsul Islam jumped to 2017 conference (ijtema) of the Tablighi Jamaat held in Bhopal. In his above-mentioned article, Shamsul Islam carried a picture of the then Chief Minister and BJP leader Shivraj Chauhan being present in the said Tabligh Jamaat’s function. The caption below the photo reads “Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan with Tablighi chief”. He also gave a few lines from a statement taken from the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. It reads that the chief minister “reached and inspected the Tablighi Ijtema site today. He took stock of the arrangements related to the congregation”.
With this little evidence, Shamsul Islam weaved a conspiracy theory that the Tabligh Jamaat was close to the BJP and the RSS. But it is also a reality that the BJP leader Shivraj Chauhan attended the Tablighi Jamaat’s function as the chief minister of the state and not as the political leader of a Hindu nationalist party. Politicians often do not let go occasion to appear for the sake of votes. Since he was the chief minister and the function was being held in Bhopal, it may be possible that he invited himself to attend the programme. It could have also been possible that the Tablighi Jamaat might have invited him, in the hope of political protection.
Was he invited? Or did he show his desire to attend the function? No one knows. Shamsul Islam is free to criticize if it was ethical for a political leader from the BJP to attend such a programme. And the Tablighi Jamaat might have been asked to clarify its position. Even if the BJP chief minister attended the meet, it cannot be a conclusive ground to imply that it is an agent of the BJP and the RSS. Visits of politicians and ministers to Islamic seminaries such as Nadwa and Deoband are not uncommon. Even the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former BJP president Rajnath Singh have visited Nadwa and met ulama there. Can it be a ground for calling Nadwa a centre working for the BJP and the RSS? One can understand the concern that educational and religious institutions should not give a platform to political leaders. But their visit to these Islamic institutions cannot be a basis of alleging their link with the saffron organisation.
The third argument of Shamsul Islam converges on the Hindu right. He held the Tablighi Jamaat responsible for being the carrier of Coronavirus. As he put it, “the reality is that Muslims who attended global meet (March 13-15) at its headquarters followed [Maulana] Saad’s words as divine. They kept huddled in the mosques and refused to be counted as a pandemic suspect. As late as April 11, the administration is having a hell of a time in tracing those who attended the TJ [Tablighi Jamaat] international conference at its headquarters. The health and police teams trying to locate suspects have been attacked”.
Again, Shamsul Islam exaggerated the situation and strengthened the agenda set by the BJP. As a result, he failed in his analysis. For example, the country-wide lockdown was announced in the night of March 24 and it was put in force just four hours after its announcement. The New York Timesaptly called the order as “the biggest and most severe action undertaken anywhere to stop the spread of the coronavirus”. If guests and members of the Tablighi Jamaat got stranded in the Markaz HQ, the larger blame should go to the government for announcing the lockdown without giving time to people to reach their destinations. As far as the speech of Maulana Saad, the Tablighi Jamaat’s head, in which he is alleged to have said that he dismissed the guidelines of maintaining social distancing, its authenticity is still in question. But Shamsul Islam used it as major evidence to build up his argument.
In his article, he did not even care to give space to the Tablighi Jamaat’s point of view. He conveniently ignored the fact that the Tablighi Jamaat issued on March 30 a two-page press statement. Here the Tabligh Jamaat’s leadership, contrary to allegations, argued that some guests could not leave for their homes as the lockdown was abruptly imposed and all means of transport got snapped. It even claimed that the Tabligh Jamaat was cooperating with the police and administration and it did not violate the guidelines.
Despite being a leftist scholar, Shamsul Islam, in his analysis, has ignored the issue from the question of labour. If he has cared to read newspapers after March 24 till March 30, the day of the raid on the Tablighi Jamaat, he would not have made such a mistake of blaming the Tabligh Jamaat for spreading coronavirus. A few days after the lockdown, things began to go out of control of the government. Without any package for the poor and the migrant workers, the unrest was erupting on the streets. Hungry and thirsty as they were, the workers were coming out of their places and marching on roads to go home. For a few days, Delhi’s Anand Vihar station was brimming with thousands of migrant workers from UP, Bihar and Bengal, defeating the very purpose of social distancing. At that movement, it was time when the failure of the government was manifest. The government could have managed the situation by announcing a package for the poor and migrant workers. But they decided to play their MasterCard, i.e., finding Muslims as scapegoats and blaming the Tabligh Jamaat for spreading the coronavirus. Targeting the weaker sections during the epidemic has a long history. With the help of a pliant media, a narrative was created and spread against Muslims. The focus was suddenly shifted from the suffering of the poor and the workers to the “dreadful” Tablighi “virus”.
Since January 30, the media is spewing venom. Jehalat (ignorance), “suicide bomb”, “anti-national” and “terrorists” were some of the abusive terms hurled at Muslims. They continue to be abused, attacked and economically boycotted. Worse still, there are incidents where the poor Muslim vegetable vendors were not allowed to enter Hindu areas. In Gujarat, separate wards for corona positives were created in a hospital on religious lines. These dangerous trends go on unabated.
All these big realities are ignored by Shamsul Islam. Instead, he kept his focus on “misdeeds” of the Tabligh Jamaat. If he thinks that gathering of people at the Markaz spread the virus, then he should also look at umpteen other gatherings and equally hold them responsible. Should not the Prime Minister Narendra Modi be blamed for holding a huge gathering in Gujarat for welcoming USA. President Donald Trump for spreading coronavirus? Should not UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath be blamed for violating the rules of social distancing by going to Ayodhya and performing the pooja? Should not the government be blamed for the huge gathering of the workers in Delhi, Mumbai and other places? Should not the government take appropriate steps to test nearly two million air passengers coming from abroad in March? If holding a gathering is a crime, why should Shamsul Islam blame the Tablighi Jamaat alone? (First appeared in Milli Gazette)
(Abhay Kumar is a Ph.D. from JNU. He is interested in minority rights and social justice. He can be reached at debatingissues@gmail.com)
We are going through strange times. While the science, technology and rationalism has given us physical and intellectual tools to better the lot of humanity, we are witnessing the production of provocative material, literature and films in particular, which demonize the particular religion, Islam to be precise, and the prophet of Islam. On the other hand there is a section of community, feeling threatened and insecure coming to the streets to protest against such humiliation and insult of their religion. There are debates on freedom of expression, but how come the freedom of expression always goes to humiliate and demonize one particular religion only?
Currently (September 2012), there are massive protests in different countries against the American embassies, resulting in death of four from the US staff, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, in Benghazi. Different countries are asking Google, the owner of YouTube, which is hosting this provocative and insulting video clip, ‘Innocence of Muslims’, to withdraw the film clip. At places the video clip has been withdrawn and blocked. US sticks to its ‘Freedom of Expression’ stance and the many protesters are still on the streets.
The film clip, of around 14 minutes duration is part of the full length feature film made by Nakoula Basseley, a US based Christian. The film is very insulting to Islam. In this film large number of modern day mob of bearded Muslims is shown to be attacking Christians. It also takes the audience back in time to show a distorted life of Prophet Mohammad with negative and aggressive traits of personality. It is crude film, made in extremely poor taste and has generated strong reaction amongst large section of Muslims. It must be pointed out that this is not the only type of reaction to this film. There are sections of clerics who have asked the Muslims to keep restrain. Quoting the moral precepts from Islam, Quran, they said that Islam is a religion of peace and no violent protests should be held. The best response to this despicable film has been from a section of Muslims distributing the book on life of Prophet Mohammad, the prophet of peace.
During last several years, it has become a sort of standard pattern by many in the West and some here in India to demonize Islam. We remember the Danish cartoon of Prophet, where he is shown as a terrorist, with a bomb tucked in his turban. A Florida Pastor went on to burn this holy book, Koran, saying that Koran teaches violence. Some US soldiers in Afghanistan also burnt copies of Koran, on the ground that the terrorist elements had written messages on those copies.
The demonization of Islam and Muslims has a pattern and agenda. The cartons and films are the outcome of the deeper political processes, which aim to control the oil wells in West Asia. The imperialist greed of United States marshaled the flag of “Islam the New threat” since Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran, overthrowing the US stooge Raza Shah Pahlavi. Later the slogan was worsened with US setting up Madrassas in Pakistan to train Al Qaeda-Taliban to initiate the Muslim youth to fight against the occupying Russian armies in Afghanistan. The word, Jihad and kafir were distorted to indoctrinate the Muslim youth in these Madrassas. With later trajectories and the event of 9/11, World Trade Center attack, the US media with all its guile, popularized the phrase ‘Islamic Terrorism’. The phrase was picked up by the media all over the World and later became part of the social common sense. This is a major abuse of religion for political goals by the imperialist power. One can understand this demonization of Islam as a part of US policy, a cover to hide its agenda to control the oil. To understand it in the way Noam Chomsky ‘coined the phrase’ Manufacturing Consent’, the coining of the word Islamic terrorism is part of the US mechanism of manufacturing consent of the world to give assent to the US attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.
This US policy gas given rise to twin processes. On one hand the phenomenon like a Florida Pastor Terry Jones burning Koran or the Danish cartoonist drawing Prophet Mohammad as terrorist or the present film has been the outcome of the intense propaganda against Islam. This US propaganda has been backed up by the US sponsored ideology of ‘Clash of Civilizations’, according to which the current era of World History is the era of assault of backward Islamic civilization on the advanced Western civilization. This distorted perception, this ideology was used as a cover for US agenda in West Asia. The other process which got unleashed was that the psyche of global Muslim community started being affected. The perception came up that Muslims (Afghanistan and Iraq) are being attacked, they are under threat. In India the added aspect was the rise of RSS type politics, bringing up Ram Temple issue and starting hatred for Muslims. A large section of Muslims started feeling intimidated and besieged. It became easy for mobilizing them around identity issues. Any community which feels besieged, section of it becomes vulnerable to easy provocation and identity based mobilization.
It is a vicious circle, the Islamophobia on one side and besieged community on the other. In this scenario the Muslim clerics who are asking for peace are the beacon lights of hope for the community. The Muslims who are distributing the books on life of prophet need to be complimented. This is what the sane response from the community has to be. What about US, imperialist designs and its mighty propaganda machinery doing all the mischief in the world? Can there be a process of controlling that? Under Kofi Annan, when he was Secretary General of United Nations, a high level committee produced a report, ‘Alliance of Civilizations’. This report got lost under the barrage of Islamphobia. It is time the world as such takes note of the deeper humane values which have developed by humanity over a period of time, the values which have led to the reports of type of ‘Alliance of civilizations’, the UN conventions which have conceptualized the Human rights for all.
The trigger which has incited the demonization process of religion and films like this one are provoking these insane reactions from a section of Muslims. Can United Nations be revived as a global platform for monitoring the norms for Nations, media and other aspects of our global life evolved to ensure that democratization and human dignity is promoted. Can the World come forward to check the aggressions of ‘The Super Power’? That’s when such films will cease to act as factors promoting violent reactions. And even such crude attempts at insulting others’ religion will come down. May be with such norms and restraints on US policies we can hope that such incidents will come down. Even if there are elements making some films like this there will be others making a film giving their own versions of Prophet’s Mission of peace in the World.
And finally we also need to preserve the concept of freedom of expression moderated with its limits. We also need to cultivate methods of protest where hysterical emotions are kept at bay and rational approach is brought to the fore.
(Ram Puniyani was a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Powai and works keenly on social issues. He is the author of three books including Communal Politics: An illustrated primer.)
