BeyondHeadlines

Tag: Jamaat-e-Islami

  • Despite Political Ethnic Cleansing by BJP, BRS, Amit Shah’s Threats to Take Away Reservations, Muslim Organizations Deeply Divided in Telangana

    Despite Political Ethnic Cleansing by BJP, BRS, Amit Shah’s Threats to Take Away Reservations, Muslim Organizations Deeply Divided in Telangana

    The Indian Muslim community has been fighting with its back to the wall for survival since 1992 with repeated onslaughts by the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal, and their political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The hardcore Islamophobes of the BJP—Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, and Adityanath—are leaving no stone unturned to obliterate the existence of Muslims in our country.

    The razing of the Babri Masjid, the snatching of Babri Masjid land, destruction of the Muslim businesses and properties, usurpation of Waqf properties, Gujarat Muslim Genocide, riots, lynchings, delimitation of the Muslim majority Lok Sabha and Legislative Assembly constituencies particularly in Gujarat, Assam, Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, and other places for political exclusion and deprivation of Muslims, getting former Members of Parliament killed in encounters or through criminals, bulldozing of Muslims’ properties on the false allegations of stone-throwing, attempts to impose Uniform Civil Code (UCC), Hijab ban, moving towards Halal ban have not opened the eyes of the 200 Million Muslims in India! Telangana is a glaring example of the deep political division of Muslims in slumber if one goes by different Muslim organizations’ fragmented appeals in favor of different political parties. The vested interests and political slavery of these so-called Muslim organizations are pushing the Muslim community to its possible doom!

    The BJP, true to its anti-Muslim stance, has not given a ticket to any Muslim. The Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), in tacit alliance with the BJP, has followed Narendra Modi’s silent instructions to give just a token representation. The only sitting BRS Muslim MLA from Bodhan, Amer Shakil, is fielded along with three other dummy Muslim candidates in the old city of Hyderabad. Amer Shakil is on a sticky wicket. Congress candidate Sudarshan Reddy is likely to pip Shakil for the post. So, there will be zero Muslim representation among legislators from the BRS. Congress is not washed with milk either. It has given less than 5% tickets to Muslims, and two of its so-called Muslim candidates are temple hoppers, who break coconuts there. Reddys and some others have cornered Muslims’ tickets in Congress. After coming back to power in Karnataka, Congress seems to be in a resurgent mode. Congress would not have lost power at the Center in 2014 but for its anti-Muslim laws in the name of fighting terrorism with the likes of Islamophobes Digvijay Singh and P Chidambaram in Manmohan Singh’s cabinet. Muslims distanced themselves from the Congress and shifted political loyalties to regional parties like the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Janata Dal (Secular), and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), now known as BRS. But Muslims were used as vote banks. All these regional parties duped Muslims and danced to the communal tunes of their parent party, the BJP, led by the propagandist pied piper Narendra Modi.

    In the Telangana Legislative Assembly elections, the United Muslim Forum (UMF), a mix of diverse and divergent Muslim sects dominated by political Ulema and Mutawallis of Dargahs, has appealed to the Muslims to vote for the BRS. Some of the Mutawallis are accused of selling away Waqf lands. The Jamaat-e-Islami has adopted a fragmented musical chair approach and pledged support to the BRS, Congress, and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Earlier, the Jamaat used to dine with the MUF. The Jamiat Ulema-Hind, led by two warring political jokers, Arshad Madani and Mahmood Madani, stands perfectly divided, with one faction supporting the BRS and another sailing with the Congress.

    The political opportunist Mullas of the MUF, Jamaat-e-Islami, and Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind factions have, by this support for the BRS, demonstrated that they are on the same page with the BRS on the issue of Waqf lands, whose chief K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) as Chief Minister not only took away Waqf properties worth thousands of crores of rupees (esp. Dargah Hadhrat Hussain Shah Wali Waqf land) but also allegedly got handcuffed Muslim prisoners killed in Alair in a false encounter with the police. The KCR destroyed eight mosques in Telangana. He did not give Muslims even a Rs 1 lakh loan in the last 4 years of his second tenure. He did not start and complete the Islamic Cultural Center. He gave away huge funds to Dalits and shepherds while taking away even the meager budgetary allotment to Muslims. Officials were instructed to spend no more than 50 percent of the budget allotted to the Minority Welfare Department. KCR supported the Narendra Modi government in passing all the anti-Muslim bills in Parliament. The blind Mullas are all comfortable and complicit in KCR’s crimes against the Muslim community. They are dividing the Muslim community for their own selfish interests.

    The blind and heartless Mullas have sold their souls to different political entities, leaving the common Muslim voter confused. Many people and prominent political pundits believe that Congress is a lesser evil compared to the BRS. The Congress is on an undeniable surge after its victory in Karnataka. It will take a mighty effort for Congress to encash the anti-incumbency against the tainted and allegedly corrupt BRS government. The unemployed youth are angry with KCR for paper leaks, whose liquor-scam-tainted daughter, K. Kavitha has also put him in a spot of bother. Amit Shah’s threats to take away the 4 percent reservations given to socially and economically backward Muslims will boomerang on the BJP’s vitriolic hate campaign with bulldozers. Fielding the lowly extremist Raja Singh, who abused the Holy Prophet (PBUH), has exposed the BJP in the eyes of the international community and particularly the wise people of Telangana State. The hardcore communal crooks of the BJP—Adityanath and Hemanta Biswa Sarma—are daydreaming that Hyderabad will be renamed Bhagyanagar.

    The Muslims of Telangana should not follow the blind Mullas but keep the interests of the community at heart for their political survival in the years to come. It is time to send KCR back to his much-loved farmhouse. A Congress government or a Congress-headed coalition would be in the best interests of all communities, particularly Muslims. It is high time to exorcise the communal demons casting an evil eye on Telangana. Hopefully, the inciting Bhasmasuras will meet their fate in 2024.

  • A Justice Denied as Bangladesh Prosecutes War Crimes

    A Justice Denied as Bangladesh Prosecutes War Crimes

    A special war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh sentenced an American citizen to death last month after convicting him in absentia for perpetrating crimes against humanity during the country’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Established in 2010 by the governing Awami League, the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) was tasked with trying alleged war crimes, which occurred during the 1971 war, and bringing to justice those individuals responsible. The ICT ostensibly would play a crucial role in facilitating national reconciliation by confronting the savage atrocities that marred the country’s independence and created bitter divisions within Bangladesh that persist today.

    Unfortunately, the tribunal is unlikely to achieve this critically important goal. Afflicted with a host of procedural and substantive defects since its inception, the proceedings have fallen far short of governing standards of international law. The special court appears to have become politicized, with the ICT’s prosecutions widely regarded as a mechanism for the Awami League to target political enemies. The flawed proceedings have raised difficult but familiar questions about whether a relatively nascent state can administer international justice in a fair and neutral manner. The tribunal’s record in this regard has been troubling so far, threatening to deny Bangladesh the justice it has sought since its founding.

    It is indeed difficult to overstate the horror that accompanied Bangladesh’s struggle to achieve independence more than 40 years ago. Between March and December 1971, the central government in West Pakistan unleashed a brutal military campaign against the country’s eastern wing in an effort to crush Bengali claims of self-determination. Conservative figures estimate that West Pakistani forces, in conjunction with local collaborators, killed 300,000, raped 200,000, and forced 10 million refugees to flee across the border to India for safety. A host of evidence suggests that Pakistani forces and local militia specifically and systematically targeted large portions of East Pakistan’s male population, intelligentsia, and Hindu minority, leading many to conclude that genocide had been perpetrated against the Bengali people.

    Shortly after achieving independence, Bangladesh’s new leaders raised the prospect of trying suspected war crimes arising from the 1971 war by enacting the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act in 1973. Led by the country’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the government jettisoned these plans, however, after granting a general amnesty to all participants in the civil war as part of a broader reconciliation campaign. His daughter’s Awami League party resurrected the idea nearly four decades later, sweeping into power during general elections in 2008 after promising to establish a war crimes tribunal that would prosecute crimes against humanity and other violations of international law that occurred during the country’s bloody war for independence.

    Initial expectations surrounding the historic proceedings were high. Officials in Dhaka solicited advice from Western governments and international law experts, includingAmbassador Stephen Rapp, the United States Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues, to help ensure a fair administration of international justice. Bangladeshi leaders pledged a trial process that would be impartial, transparent, and consistent with governing standards of international criminal law. The country’s Minister for Law declared that the tribunal would be “exemplary for the world community… working with full independence and complete neutrality.”

    Unfortunately, the chasm between rhetoric and reality has proven profound. A growing consensus has emerged that the tribunal’s legal and trial processes are grossly deficient. Most of the accused are members of Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist group closely aligned with the country’s main opposition party. This has compelled many to conclude that the war crimes trials are politically motivated and represent a blatant attempt to weaken Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinsa’s electoral opponents. The tribunal’s judges have been accused of colluding with the court’s prosecutors. Brazen government interference with the court’s deliberations has been extensively documented. Reports of defense counsel and witnesses being harassed, intimidated, and even arrested have become increasingly commonplace. The court’s rules of evidence are inconsistent with international standards, skewed heavily against the defense. Although the ICT has issued 10 guilty verdicts to date — eight of which carry death sentences — the glaring deficiencies plaguing the proceedings strongly suggest that the accused have been deprived of the most basic requirements of due process.

    The defective proceedings have polarized the country. Contrary to serving as the unifying force government officials trumpeted it would be, the tribunal has instead exacerbated existing tensions, pitting mostly middle-class secularists, who support the prosecutions, against Islamists who denounce them as political theater. Deadly riots have accompanied virtually every decision issued by the ICT, as police clash with demonstrators protesting the guilty verdicts.

    Beyond Bangladesh, however, the acute problems daunting the ICT have once again provoked enduring but complex questions about whether developing countries like Bangladesh can adequately deliver international justice, or whether they should allow international tribunals like the International Criminal Court at the Hague to do so instead. Special tribunals and commissions established in developing countries like Cambodia, Iraq, and Sri Lanka to prosecute or investigate mass killings within their borders have generated more controversy than closure for victims and their families. For those hoping that it would serve as a model for similarly situated nations wishing to achieve both accountability and reconciliation through war crimes prosecutions at home, Bangladesh’s so-called “international” tribunal constitutes a profound disappointment.

    Born in bloodshed, Bangladesh seeks a justice long overdue. Regrettably, the very judicial body responsible for delivering that justice instead threatens to further deny it.

    For Academic Citation:

    “A Justice Denied as Bangladesh Prosecutes War Crimes.” The Huffington Post, December 2, 2013.

  • Welfare Party launched by Jamaat

    BeyondHeadlines  News Desk

    New Delhi: Jamaat e Islami Hind (JIH)  launched its political party today. It will be called the Welfare Party.  Mujtaba Farooque will be  its first president.

    Milli Gazette  Editor Dr Zafar-ul-Islam Khan, Iliyas Kazmi, Father Ibraham Joseph, Abdul wahab Khilji, ZA Khan and Lalitha Naik will be its Vice Presidents.

    SQR Iliyas, Prof Sohail A Khan, Prof Rama Panchal, Khalida Praveen, and PC Hamza will  general secretaries. Abdus Salam will head its treasury.

    Speaking at the launch ceremony S Q R Iliya said: “Jamaat is not entering into politics. It is only facilitating in the formation of this party, called the Welfare Party. Further, this party will cater to all cross section of the society. ”

    Related stories:

    Concept Note of the Welfare Party

    JIH Political Party: A Journey From ‘Politics of Dependence to Politics of Self Reliance’

  • A Community Scared of Both Muslim and Hindu Extremists

    Suresh Nambath

    A 2006 cable talks about the Muslims of north India being nervous and fearful after the serial train blasts in Mumbai

    Chennai: In a cable sent after the 2006 Mumbai attacks, the United States Embassy reported that its contacts had little faith in the ability of Islamic leaders, political parties, security agencies or the Indian government to prevent a terrorist attack and the anti-Muslim backlash that could follow. “Extremists in Uttar Pradesh barely conceal their activities and seem to operate with impunity,” Charge d’Affaires Geoffrey Pyatt quoted the Embassy contacts as saying in a report on the situation of north Indian Muslims after the serial train blasts in Mumbai.

    Mr. Pyatt, in the cable sent on July 13, 2006 ( 71263: confidential) said the Mumbai attacks had focussed attention on the fragile communal situation in the North Indian Hindi belt, most particularly in Uttar Pradesh. “While Indians are grateful that the Mumbai attacks have not yet set off a communal conflagration, North Indian Muslims remain nervous and fearful.”

    Noting that Uttar Pradesh, with a 17 per cent Muslim population and a large concentration of Shias, has endured a string of terrorist attacks since 2001, including multiple bombings on moving trains similar to the Mumbai blasts, he pointed out that the Students Islamic Movement of India and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the two principal suspects in the Mumbai attacks, are both active in the State.

    Maulana Arshad Madani, the president of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind, which is the political wing of the Deobandi sect, decried the Mumbai bombings as “barbaric acts calculated to disturb communal harmony.” But there were no similar statements from other prominent Muslim organisations or leaders, especially Wahhabi organisations such as the Jamaat-e-Islami.

    “Less prominent Muslim organizations came forward, with generally anodyne statements, including the Muslim Political Council of India, whose President, Tasleem Rehmani rhetorically urged the Government of India to declare all victims of the bombings as martyrs to national integrity,” he said.

    Embassy’s Survey

    The Embassy conducted an informal survey of Muslim contacts from Lucknow and other cities. “Respondents included several Maulvis (both Sunni and Shia), Urdu language journalists, political and community leaders, scholars and academics. Their responses revealed a remarkable unanimity on ‘Islamic terrorism.’ All expressed disdain for what they characterized as the ‘weak response’ of India’s Muslim leadership to the Mumbai attacks, accusing such leaders of taking a ‘head in the sand’ approach and denying stark realities. They pointed out that after a string of terrorist assaults by Muslim extremists throughout India, it is now common knowledge within the Muslim community that the terrorists have established a support system and sympathizers’ network among Indian Muslims to help carry out attacks conceived and orchestrated by foreign Muslims.”

    In his analysis, Pyatt wrote: “The Mumbai attacks cannot help but increase unease amongst North Indian Muslims, who have witnessed politically-engineered communal riots in several UP cities over the past six months. Muslim fears are compounded by the lack of governance in UP and Bihar.”

    The police force in Uttar Pradesh, the Charge said, had been suborned and corrupted by the Samajwadi Party [the ruling party]: “We doubt that it would be able to maintain security if communal rioting gets out of hand.”

    The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on the other hand, had begun to stage “anti-terrorism” rallies at various locations in the Hindi belt, including communal flashpoints with large Muslim populations. “In the Hindutva lexicon, ‘terrorism’ is synonymous with Islam and most Muslims will see the BJP rallies and statements for a war against terrorism as provocative calls for a war against Islam,” the diplomat wrote.

    “North India, and particularly UP remain stressful and the Mumbai attacks have exacerbated an already fragile communal situation. Our Muslim contacts have reported over the past six months that Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and other Islamic extremists, including mysterious individuals they claim are “members of Al-Qaeda,” have been active in the Muslim community, recruiting disaffected young men with offers of physical training, study of the Qu’ran, job opportunities and easy money. They are worried that these are nascent terrorist cells that could be activated to carry out attacks at the behest of foreign-based organizations,” he added in the cable.

    A community besieged

    Painting a picture of a community besieged by both Muslim and Hindu extremists, he said: “Muslims see signs that militant Hindutva organizations are also reviving and could use a terrorist attack as an excuse to mount reprisals. The silence of most North Indian Muslims is most telling, as it indicates a community scared of both Muslim and Hindu extremists and determined to keep a low profile at all costs.”

    (This article is first published in The Hindu and is a part of the series “The India Cables” based on the US diplomatic cables accessed by The Hindu via Wikileaks.)