MUSLIM POLITICS

Chaudhary Fariduddin on Need for Islamic Initiative in India

A link that Muslims must always have with their surroundings and which had been weakening for quite some time, was eventually snapped way back in the aftermath of 1857 is the link of "being the benefactors".

This event plunged India as well as the Muslims into hitherto uncharted depths of slavery and degradation.

Muslims need to make a new beginning by giving ourselves a new role in our country: lead the movement for establishing a good and just society within the country.

A society can become good and just only when it follows all the principles enunciated by Islam. It follows that one of the primaries means to fulfil our new role is for us to follow Islam in our personal lives and in our community living. The second most important means is to disseminate and call the general public – both Muslims and non-Muslims - to true Islam as lovingly as possible.

Having allowed for the possibility that many will reject this call to Islam, we must not forget that such people too have the right to help us and participate in this grand struggle to establish a good and just society (and) to our human concern for them. There exists a certain block in the minds and hearts of the majority of the people as far as Islam and Muslims are concerned.

Let's then pick up, one by one, the thorns strewn by history along the path. There is another bunch of thorns, born of the twin feelings of hate and fear: our problems.

Let us give up for the time being our demands from community platforms (for) the redressal of our problems like employment, Urdu, Babari Masjid, minority status for our institutions etc.

We should resist any interference in Islamic laws.

Let us Ulema open the door of creative thinking (Ijtihad) to declare that we will

* Reactivate (Ta'leef-ul-quloob) by assisting Non-Muslims from our Zakaat.

Reserve 12% of all welfare funds collected by Muslims.

Let us ... pay equal attention to Muslims as well as non-Muslims in action for universal availability of food, clothing, shelter, education and health Equality and equity between man and man and man and woman. For recasting of archaic laws and expansion of the judicial system and against usury and interest and ostentatious living.

These actions will have an impact on the socio-political scene in India (and) redeem for the Indian Muslims their role of being "the benefactors of mankind".

It will take the wind out of the sails of many adversaries. Infuse Muslims with a worthwhile purpose open up the hearts and minds of the people of India to (Islam's call) If a sufficient number of us become pious Muslims and throw ourselves into the struggle to establish a good and just society, the day will not be far when Islamic principles will be accepted, we will be asked to lead the country.         

(Source: The Radiance Views weekly, 21'27 September, 1997)

Shahabuddin's Reply to The Radiance Viewsweekly, 30 September, 1997

On reading Mr. Chaudhary Fariduddin's article "A New Role For Indian Muslims" in your issued dated 21- 27 September 1997, I am struck both by his religious fervour and his political naivete. I have also read earlier Maulana Jalaluddin Umri's article in Urdu which forms the starting point of the Chaudhary thesis. But Mr Chaudhary has gone far beyond Maulana Umri in working out the logistics and modalities of the new role which he would like the Muslim Indians to perform.

In a personal conversation and subsequently in a letter, I have conveyed to Maulana Umri the sheer impracticability, and likely negative reaction among the Hindu community in India and impact on Hindu-Muslim relation of the presentation of Islam as an alternative system of governance in India today.

Nobody can dispute that the Muslim Indians have individually and collectively the duty and responsibility to mould their personal and social life in accordance with the dictates of Islam. Indeed, much ground remains to be covered in this internal campaign. The present political system which is based on democracy and secularism, freedom and equality, fundamental rights and the rule of law does not impede or block the absorption of Islam by the Muslim Indians in their personal or social life.

If this is achieved and the Muslim Indians are no longer merely Muslim by birth but Muslim in their thought and action, whatever be their situation in life, this is bound to have a cumulative and permanent impact on the Indian society. But this has to come about only by the sheer force of example and not by publicity. The Hindu Indian mind, from the right to the left of the political spectrum, will only ridicule and treat with contempt any organised attempt by the Muslim Indians or a section thereof to project Islam, or what has been called the Islamic ideology as an alternative system of governance or as the panacea for the ills of the Indian society. Such assertion will be laughed out of court and even resisted and in the process anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiments will be fanned the Muslim Indians will not only be accused of being fundamentalist but power-hungry, out to restore Muslim rule in India.

What the Muslims Indians can and must do, and which they have not been doing so far as intensively as they should, is to participate fully and in the political and social life of the country, in political parties, in peoples movements, in professional organisations, in trade unions, in student and youth associations, in campaigns against corruption and criminalisation, in every walk of life, so that through such participation they share a national responsibility, perform a national duty and gain personal acceptance as well as bring honour and prestige to the community in the eyes of the Hindus. This is indeed a higher involvement in politics than engagement only in politics of murmur and protest, which addresses their own grievances and seeks constitutional and legal remedies thereto. Only when the Muslim Indians do their duty by the country and all its people, can they expect the rest of the people to be sensitive to and responsive towards their grievances and problems. Only if they work sincerely for the common causes, through a political party or other-wise, can they become effective spokesman for their own community within the party or organisation of their choice and a valuable link between the community and the political system.

As far removing the scratches on the Hindu mind which definitely exist, what is needed is not abject surrender to the whims and fancies of Hindu Nationalism but a systematic campaign to remove their mis-perceptions and misunderstandings and to combat the vicious propaganda against Islam and Muslims and the Muslim Indians which goes on churning round the clock, day after day and vitiating the national environment.

M.V. Kamath on Hindu-Muslim Reconciliation

The best friends of the Muslims are not the Islam countries but their fellow-citizens, the Hindus. Tl Hindus have their memory of the past thousand years memory that is often unpleasant but which the Indian Muslims would do well to respect. It is when this respect is seen to be shown that Muslims and Hindus can live like brothers. And the time for that has come.

The time has come for them to come out of the shell, try to understand the hurts to Hindu psyche, mee those hurts nobly and fearlessly - as on the Ram Janmabhoomi issue - and join hands with the Hind majority, and find that all the world is theirs for the asking. The majority community can get along howsoever lumpingly, without Muslim support, but will that support it can turn India into a great power, indeed mighty power. In that adventure the Muslims must eagerly join hands with Hindus for their mutual prosperity. Let no one under-estimate the Hindu capacity to be magnanimous.