MUSLIM POLITICS
Shahabuddin's Open Letter to Khalid Sabir, Editor, News from India,
22 August, 1996
This is an open reply to your open letter to me published in the latest issue of News from India. I do not comprehend level, for each your motive or its timing, for in all your personal discussions with me over the years since you returned to India, you never pointed out the 'defects and deficiencies' of my personality. I wish you had in any case I thank you for your concern and suggestion.
Permit me to make some comments, both on your general concepts as well as on your particular point about myself. Let me begin by saying that I have never claimed to be the leader of the Muslim Indian community or even a Muslim leader, far less the Sole Leader. Never have I sought the seat vacated by Jinnah on the creation of Pakistan which 1 consider, without any ill-will towards Pakistan or its people, as a great tragedy for the Muslims of the Sub- continent. I also recall that when the Hindu forces began castigating me as the Second Jinnah, I reacted by declaring that while I was proud of the comparison, I aspired to be the Second Nehra!
What I find interesting in your letter is your desire to see me in the role of Jinnah, while Jinnah does not at all fit your prescription for a Muslim leader or even a mass leader. Except for occasionally wearing a Shervani and donning what can to be called the Jinnah cap, Jinnah never tried to "shape and mould himself as per the wishes and aspirations of the people'! By all accounts, he was a cold person and did not care to develop close and personal ties with the people and even with his immediate colleagues. His style of living was earth-and-sky apart from what you all 'collective living' of the Muslim masses. He never showed any humility or in tolerance for the others' point of view. Indeed, he was arrogant and self-righteous, never suffered fools and never showed patience for base motives, never cared for worthless is opinions and long winding, futile debate. He was imperious, haughty and aloof and never made any populist gestures or cared to follow the popular approach or even seek the endorsement by the other leaders of the League. Yes, he espoused, after 1940, a vision which captured, rightly or wrongly, the imagination of the Muslim community and created a wave which swept away all the leaders and leader- lets of the Muslim community. Those who wanted to survive had no option but to take shelter under his umbrella!
Yes, times were different; politics had a slower pace, it was much simpler, much less complex then it is today. A single point programme for resolving the mega problem- submergence or survival after independence. Today, the political dilemmas, the problems and options, the levels and the dimensions are far more complex. There cannot be a one-point solution; there cannot be a 'sole' leadership. The country and the community need capable, enlightened, progressive and honest leadership at each problem.
Since I entered politics, I have always stood for the option of secular politics and worked through secular parties. I have refused to join or lead a Muslim party! Communal the long and short run feeds Hindu communalism. At the politics, I feel, is suicidal and at least self-defeating and in same time, I have also struggled for safeguarding the constitutional rights of the Muslim Indians, as of all religious, linguistic, cultural and ethnic minorities and for their right, above all, to their identity. I have been dubbed communalist, fundamentalist and worse and I have been hunted. I have stood my ground because I feel that the survival of the Muslim Indian in dignity and equality, besieged as they are by the chauvinist forces, is related to the survival of the Secular Order, the strengthening of the Secular State, and the understanding and support of the Secular Forces. I have no politics. I leave the privilege to you and to others who think desire to enter the terrain (I call it the wasteland) of Muslim like you and to the predators and demagogues who prey on the Muslim community, rouse its emotions and play with its sentiments. If you think, that any one of you could become Fascism, someone, more mass-oriented, less bureaucratic, a Jinnah and the defender the community from Hindu more humble, more patient, more tolerant, more cordial, he should take' the plunge. Why should you try to "lead" me into a course of action, I consider futile and suicidal?
Your very well-argued thesis which almost succeeded in inciting me to change my political line and run towards the mirage of Muslim politics and secure for myself Jinnah's still vacant seat, errs unforgivably on a question of fact. It is not true that I hardly visited' my constituency or employed diligence to cultivate my electorate. I visited it at least 30 times during 3 years more than perhaps any other M.P. and most of the time, spent 6-7 days among the people, visiting distant and almost inaccessible villages, which not even an Assembly candidate had visited, using jeep, motorcycle, cycle, bullock cart, walking under the Sun and wading through mud and waist-deep water. Incidentally, his Jinnah never did-nor could he have done it! Personally and through people before the authorities at various levels, the block, the letters, I placed the needs, problems and grievances of my District, the State and Centre. The pace of development, in this period, despite the inefficiency of the State Government and the corruption of the officials and local leaders, achieved reasons thereof in the Muslim India of May, 1996.
I also notice an element cavy stay in your letter. Yes, I was a civil servant and I have an unblemished record which I have every reason to be proud of. I acquired valuable and useful experience and got acquainted with problems, national and international, in many parts of the world. When the time came to leave it all behind me, I did, without any regret. I changed my life-style and adopted the living of the common mean. For me politics has been, thanks be to Allah, a politics of service, not of aggrandizement. No one can accuse me of corruption which has become the hallmark of the political and bureaucratic culture, indeed their meeting point.
I cannot relive my life; I cannot disown my past. And thanks be to Allah, I have achieved eminence at every stage of my life as a student, as a teacher, as a diplomat, as a lawyer, as a parliamentarian and as a politician, even as a writer, so much so that, with all my faults and failings, defects and deficiencies, you see in me the potential of a second Jinnah! Why should I be ashamed of my past? And why should I suffer self-serving incoherence? And why shouldn't in the midst of stinking corruption, I be proud of my integrity and I feel ashamed of the bargaining that our 'great leaders' have engaged in,
Why do you feel so strongly against Muslim India? Has it hit some raw nerve of yours recently? Yes, its objective is to compile a record for posterity, of the beautiful and the ugly, of the options before the community, of the quality of those who make promises to the community or claim to lead it and who bargain the honour of the community at every turn and who sell their souls for thirty prices of silver, who work, sometimes even consciously, for its enemies.
I have made more visits to the sites of human tragedy then you can imagine. I have met more people than you can count. I know my people; my people know me; they come to see me; they write to me. But I have no desire to carry anyone on my shoulders or to build up local and regional giants who are mental and moral dwarfs.
The malady of the people like you is the urge for back- seat driving. You want a Leader, but on condition that you can lead him! In any case, you have to look for someone else NOT ME.
SP: Views of Mulayam Singh Yadav
There is a definite understanding between the BSP and BJP. In the event of none of the political parties getting clear majority, they will join hands again.
Triangular fights suit us more. The revival of the Congress will only alert the BJP. After all the Congress will cut into their votes and not ours. A straight fight with the BJP would have been more difficult.
The minority vote has further consolidated in the favor of the United Front. Now that the BSP has allied with the Congress the minority will not go at all with the former.
(Source: The Hindustan Times)
HAMZA KADANNANMANNA awarded National Award for Teachers for 1995-96
MOHAMMED SARWAR YUSUF KHAN (Dilip Kumar) gets Al-Ameen All India Community Leadership Award, 1996.
A.P.J. ABUL KALAM awarded the Prof. Y Nayudamma Memorial Gold Medal. Hyderabad, 8 August, 1996,
*S.A. ABBASI selected for International Award by International Desalination Association, US.
MAQBOOL DAR, M.P. inducted as MOS in Deve Gowda Ministry. New Delhi, 10 July, 1996. • KHALIQ ANJUM appointed Vice Chancellor of Jamia Urdu, Aligarh, 21 July, 1996.
*RAFIQ ZAKARIA appointed Chancellor of Jamia Urdu, Aligarh. Aligarh, 23 July, 1996.
ABDUL MOGHNI appointed Vice Chancellor of Mithila University. Patna, 29 July, 1996.
ABUL KALAM awarded Gujarmal Modi Award. New Delhi, 9 August, 10996.
QAMARUL ISLAM and P.M. SAEED nominated member of Central Haj Committee.
MOHD. HADI ANSARI (UP), SYED ALI(TN) and ZIAUDDIN ISLAHI(UP) (for Arabic) and AKHLAQ QASMI (DELHI), SYED WAHEED ASHRAF (GUJARAT), ZILURAHMAN (UP) (for Persian) awarded Presidential Awards. New Delhi 10 August, 1996.
S.N.A. RIZVI appointed President of Indian Society of Nephrology. New Delhi, 12 August, 1996.
SALMAN KHURSHID appointed Chairman of External Affairs Cell of All India Congress Committee (1). New Delhi, 13 August, 1996,
A.M. KHUSRO appointed Patron of Federation of Merchant Banking and Finance Companies. New Delhi, 20 September, 1996.
SHARIFUZ ZAMAN LASKAR appointed General Secretary of All India National Students Union of India. New Delhi, 20 September, 1996.
* ANWAR JAMAL KIDWAI awarded Khuda Bakhsh Award (1993-94). New Delhi, 24 September, 1996.
MUSTANSIR BARMA and HASNAIN awarded 1995 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards for Science and Technology. New Delhi, 26 September, 1996.
HAMIDA AHMAD appointed Member of the University Grants Commission for a term of three years. New Delhi, 27 September, 1996.
IMTIAZ AHMADKHAN, IAS, nominated Chairman, New Delhi Municipal Committee, 28 Aug 1996
V. ABDUR RAHIM, EHTESHAMUL HAQUE NADVI AND BADRUL HAFIZ, Arabian and Persian Scholar, recive Presidental Award, September, 1996
