"Hindustan ki Masjidein"

"Muslims all over the world including those of India were hopefully looking up to Pakistan for help and guidance and whatever happened in Pakistan or any other Muslim country cast its shadow on the Indian Muslims also. The Pakistani debacle of 1971 had caused immense grief to Indian Muslims."

The speaker? Maulana Abul Hassan ALi Nadvi, otherwise known as Ali Mian, whom the press always refers to as the widely respected scholar and moderate Muslim leader. The source of the extract? An official note. The occasion? The reception given by the secretary-general of the Pakistan National Alliance to delegates of the First Asian Islamic Conference at Karachi in July 1978. Almost all important leaders of Islamic orthodoxy in India had gone for the meeting -- from the Darul Uloom Deoband, the organisation without reading the publications of which our press lauds as the Al Azhar of India, from the Jamat-e-Islami Hind, the Tabligh Jamaat, the JUUH...Naturally, Ali Mian was among the most prominent delegates.
The convenor of the conference? The Rabita-e-Alam-e-Islami, Mecca, set up by the King of Saudi Arabia, which among other things, decides which Islamic body the world over shall get how much money. Among the founding members of the Rabita? Ali Mian, the moderate leader.
In whose view, "A religious order cannot be established unless religion comes to weild political power and the system of governance is based on Islamic foundations?" Who lauds the "lofty idealism" and the "mature political outlook" of Iqbal which "lay at the base of the demand for Pakistan?" Who has scorn for the "the modernists of the Middle East -- from Ataturk to Nasser -- and who exhorts the King of Saudi Arabia to hold fast to the ways of orthodox Islam? On whose reckoning did the arrival of Islam alone raise the country from "the age of savagery to the age of progress," from "oblivion and obscurity" to "the pinnacle of name and fame," from its "parochial ambit" to "the family of man?" In whose view the slaughtering of the cows is "a great Islamic act?" In whose view, while it may not be so in other countries, in India it is "a great Islamic act" because the cow is worshipped in India?
The answer to each question: Ali Mian, the head of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, the rector of the Nadwatul Ulema, Lucknow.
At the moment I am not on the question these views are justified or not, but on the more elementary one: We do not bother to learn the views of the person, we do not ascertain the idealogy which the "scholarly" works of the Nadwatul Ulema spreads, but the moment the place is raided a howl goes up. The minister of the state for internal security apologises. A cabinet minister from Delhi rushes and apologises. The chief minister of UP apologises. Two police officers -- one of the rank of IG and the other DIG -- are transfered out.
Look at how the place came to be raided. In the aftermath of the kidnapping of foreigeners and the subsquent encounter six persons were caught. Interrogation revealed that the operation had been masterminded by the now well-known student of the London School of Economics, and one "Shahji" of Pakistan. The latter had escaped. But during interrogation, one of the others disclosed the house in which the man stayed -- in Suiwala mohalla in old Delhi. The place was raided.
"Shahji" had not been to the place since the encounter, it transpired. But a briefcase was found. It yielded, among other things, an identity card of the Lucknow University and a railway ticket which had been used for a journey from Lucknow to Delhi on November 14, 1994. The identity card was taken to the University authorities in Lucknow. They established that it was a forgery.
A reservation had been secured against the railway ticket. Records were examined and it turned out that the reservation had been made for one "Khursheed Ahmed" who had given his address as Room 20/2 Athar Hostel, Nadwatul Ulema, Lucknow.
It was this reason that the place was raided that very night. When the policemen were trying to break open the door of the room, students surrounded them, started throwing stones etc. It is said that a country-made "bomb" was also hurled at them. The police fired, in self-defence, and in the air, they say.
The raid was effectively thwarted. The police had to retreat. The room could not be searched. The seven boys who had been picked up could not be interrogated -- Mulayam Singh insured that they were released before they could be questioned.
How can it be held that officers of the rank of IG and DIG are not competent to decide whether or not to conduct a raid upon the receipt of specific information? By what law can it be held that because an institution is a "minority institution" or "an educational institution" it is outside the reach of the police?
Now is it just that the position is so totally without any basis in law. What nails the matter is intelligence information about the manner in which ISI as well as agencies of the other Islamic countries are executing their plans in India.
Intelligence reports submitted to the highest levels of government document show the recent phase of the activity of these organisations began with the Taif Summit of the OIC in January 1981. How funds began to be systematically channeled through the Rabita-e-Alam-Islami, the organisation we encountered earlier, the Motmar al Alam al Islami and the Supreme World Council of Mosques. How these funds were given to mosques, madarsas, "centers of Islamic learning" and other Islamic organisations.
How the overseas Islamic organisations and their funds spawned a series of organisations in India and invigorated others. The Supreme World Council of Mosques, for instance, was established as a wing of the Rabita-e-Alam-e- Islami in 1978. In March 1980, this new organisation passed a resolution asking the Indian government "to show due reverence to Muslim houses of worship" and to reserve a suitable portion of its budget "for Muslim affairs." In October the same year, the parent organisation, the Rabita asked the Indian government that it be allowed to open an office in India "for Muslim affairs".
How the Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind was a member of the executive of the Supreme World Council. How as a follow up of these initiatives, the Jamaat-e-Islami lost no time in establishing the All-India Council of Mosques at the Jamaat's All-India Conference at Hydrabad in February 1981.
How the Hydrabad meeting was closely guided by Sheikh Ali Mohammed al Mukhtar, the assistant secretary-general of the Supreme World Council.
How a systematic attempt began thereafter to transform the mosques in India into live centers of indoctrination and to knit them into a network.
How other organisations, hitherto unknown, suddenly became very energetic and prominent -- among these the Jammat Ahl-e-Hadees and the organisation from which pressmen receive statements regularly these days, the All India Milli Council. How this Council had hardly been known till one Dr Manzoor Alam returned from Saudi Arabia about five years ago, and how it soon became the fastest growing Muslim organisation in India. How apart from Dr manzoor Alam, Mujahid-ul-Islam Kasmi, the Qazi of that other "center of Islamic learning," the Imarat-e-Sharia of Bihar is its most important functionary.
How it has very substantial funds at its disposal, most of which come from Saudi Arabia. How it is in close touch with fundamentalist and militant organisations like SIMI, the Students Islamic Movement of India, which had been set up in 1977 by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. How the All-India Milli Council and similar bodies have been systematically projecting militant and sectarian positions and fomenting a separatist mentality among targetted Muslim groups.
The intelligence reports speak of the rapid linking-up of these organizations: Ahmed Ali, alias Palani Baba, President of the All India Jihad Committee, a militant outfit operating in Tamil Nadu, for instance is recorded as having asked his followers to work in coordination with the All-India Milli Council. How in early 1993, the Majlis-e-Numaindgan (the Council of Representatives) of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind asked its general secretaries to set up an underground organisation, how its rukuns (active members) were asked to develop links with other Islamic bodies in every state.
The intelligence reports set out how ISI has set up operations in Nepal and Bangladesh. They specify the "organisations" which have been set up there through which Islamic organisations in India are being contacted and aided. They specify the "conferences" which have been organised in these countries as a cover for "scholars" and "theologians" to visit the places so as to cement the network. They speak of similar "conferences" in Iran and Saudi Arabia, of the Indian "scholars" who went there, and of the fallout for India. They speak of the great spurt in the number of "Islamic missionaries" coming to India in the last few years, and how the purpose of their coming here, to employ the officialise which these documents feel compelled to use, is solely to guide and encourage the Islamic institutions and organisations here.
The intelligence reports record how Muslims young men have been recruited for training in arms and explosives through organisations like SIMI, and the Islamic Sevak Sangh now rechristined as the People's Democratic Party in Kerala, how the functionaries of these organisations have played host to militants and the recruiting agents.
And so on. Much of this information has come from the horse's mouth, so to say -- for it has been obtained as a result of interrogation of terrorists and others who have been caught in the last five years.
Given this background and the obvious urgency of the matter, what are senior police officers to do when they chance upon information pointing to a specific room in a specific building -- be that a private house, a government office, a Hindu's house or a Muslim's house, an educational institution, or a "minority educational institution?"
Perhaps the information should have been cross-checked, for anyone can give any address while obtaining a railway reservation. But what if the person had escaped in the meanwhile? In any case, is it not for the officer on the spot to weigh the alternatives?
Instead of allowing government to penalise officers for doing their duty, we should:

*Have the government disclose the pattern intelligence agencies have formed about the way Islamic organisations are being used to jeopardize peace in the country;

*Urge that the government raid these places - and other places as the recent events at ISRO show - routinely so that it is established once for all that no organisation shall be a State within a State.

"India has massacred 60,000 Kashmiris, but the people of Kashmir will never rest till they have won freedom;" "India has deployed 700,000 soldiers in the Valley, and yet the Kashmiri mujahideen are inflicting heavy losses on them every day;" "How laughable it is that India has packed the Kargil sector with 40,000 troops, and just a handful of mujahidin are able to inflict humiliation upon humiliation on them;" Indian infrastructure has collapsed to such an extent that even those Indian casualties which were "lucky enough to be evacuated by air, had to wait for three days for a bed in Srinagar hospitals" -- such "facts" are repeated ad nauseum in Pakistani papers. Sixty thousand Kashmiris killed by India? Seven hundred thousand troops in Kashmir? Forty thousand troops in Kargil? Soldiers waiting for three days to get a hospital bed? We tend to dismiss such assertions as the usual lies -- friends who run one of our most conscientious news services about happenings in our neighbourhood, Public Opinion Trends, are so inured to these concoctions that they excise them from their reports! In fact, the concoctions deserve attention.
For one thing they are part of a world-view, they are part of an Ideology. Everything Pakistan does about Kashmir -- stoking terrorism, sending army regulars, spreading fabrications at every international gathering -- it pictures to itself as jihad, as a religious undertaking, indeed as an Allah-ordained duty. Concocting lies then becomes a device for discharging that duty. "War is stratagem," the Prophet has said, "War is deceit." [Sahih Muslim, Volume III, pp. 945, 990-91; Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume IV, pp. 166-67; Sunan Abu Dawud, Volume II, p. 728] Thus one may lie, one may kill the enemy while he is asleep, one may kill him by tricking him. [For instance, Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume IV, pp. 164-65, 167-68.] That is one problem: for the man or force weaned on jihad, the concoctions are an intrinsic part of the struggle he is waging, for him the fact that the war he is waging is Allah-ordained is a complete justification for cruelty, for lies and the rest; on our side, we don't just shut our eyes to the concoctions that result from it, we shut our eyes even more tightly to the Ideology of which they are but the result.
There is an immediate, practical result also. These sorts of "facts" and assertions are repeated so often that by now they have sunk into the subconscious of the average Pakistani. He actually believes that India has massacred sixty thousand Kashmiris, he actually believes that Kashmir is aflame, that Kashmiris are dying to merge into Pakistan, that it is just a matter of months and they will be able to do so. From this it is but a step to conclude that all that is necessary is to give one more push, to launch one more offensive, and the Kashmiris will rise, the place will go up in flames, India will be broken, the job will be done.
The believer, having internalised the concoction, just can't see why the world doesn't believe what he is putting out. As we have seen, Pakistani papers had themselves been reporting -- with evident self-congratulation -- that soldiers of the Pakistan Army have wrested posts from the Indian Army, that they have occupied a village in... As international opinion turned against Pakistan for that very reason, suddenly, as if a switch had been turned, references to the Pakistan Army ceased, and the victories were ascribed to the valiant mujahidin. Within days, references to these mythical mujahidin too were replaced -- now it was the "Kashmiri freedom fighters" who were inflicting the "humiliating defeats" on the Indian Army. One feature of course is that these switches come naturally -- as the war is a jihad in the cause of Allah, whichever thesis will serve The Great Cause is the one which must be pushed. The other is that the believer is just not able to see why the world does not swallow his fabrication.
As everything is a matter of belief in Allah, to question the "fact" which has been put out, to doubt a scenario -- the sheikhchili's scenario in which one favourable twist leads to another devastating turn -- becomes blasphemy, it becomes proof that one lacks faith, it is betrayal. Thus, not to believe that Indians have massacred sixty thousand Kashmiris, to doubt that Kashmir is on the brink of breaking away from India, not to believe that Kashmiris are pining to join Pakistan is to be unpatriotic, it is to lack faith in the fundamental notion that, as they all believe in Islam, all Muslims constitute one, seamless ummah. As a consequence, while not even the allies and props of Pakistan are buying its assertions today, self-delusion remains a duty!
The insurgency which Pakistan had orchestrated in Kashmir is dead: to cite a single index, while the number of tourists in the Valley had fallen to just 600 in 1996, this year they are running close to 250,000. Recruitment of locals has evaporated. But in the Pakistani press the insurgency is at the point of overturning the Indian State! A fundamental change has taken place in the area, writes a commentator in The News of 3 June. " ...Freedom fighters in Kashmir have attained self-sufficiency in weapons and have developed indigenous techniques of fighting which have become a way of life for them," he writes. "They fight under the cover of darkness, under the protection of mountains and in their own area which they know very well. They move in the area like wild goats and can reach anywhere without any difficulty. They return to their homes and hearths in the morning after accomplishing their task and join their family on the jobs which are needed to be done to earn livelihood." "Two weeks of fighting in the Kargil sector have established the following facts," the analyst continues. "That the indigenous insurrection movement in Kashmir is so strong and so well-armed that India can no longer hold it in check. It is also no longer possible for India to cross the international boundary and so the fighting will remain confined to Kashmir where India has always been the loser..."

"On the diplomatic front the Indians are playing on the back-foot," writes an analyst in The News of 4 June. "....The Kargil operation [of India], aimed at killing the Kashmir issue, will have helped to chisel away at the paralysed and hardened Kashmir position of the international players [an acknowledgment there!]. And the Kashmiris living under Indian control know that. Much like the Intifada which proved to be a potent stimulus for the Palestinians under Israeli occupation,

India's Kargil fiasco will renew the Kashmiri resolve to fight on. Psychologically, the fact that a mere 400 - 600 mujahidin have bogged down the world's third largest army for a few months, irrespective of the final outcome [another acknowledgment there!], will be a major morale booster for the Kashmiris of Kashmir." The diplomatic isolation of Pakistan is for all to see, but the analyst remarks, "Nawaz Sharief meanwhile, ably supported on foreign policy issues by his Information Minister and Foreign Office, has pursued a near-faultless India policy. He has mixed peace offers with commitment to his country's defence and projected nuclear strength with gentleness. He is indeed South Asia's strong man of peace...." Remember, The News is the paper which was till recently the special target of the attentions of Nawaz Sharief and his Information Minister!
Belief makes one not just blind, it makes one reckless. The Taliban in the madrasas are of course fed Quranic stories of the "wars" of Badr etc. But they are not the only ones. The regular soldier and officer of the Pakistani Army has them drilled into him just as deep. And the lesson from these stories which is stuffed into him is not some particular stratagem to be followed in a siege or an assault, say; the lesson he internalises is that Allah shall always come to the aid of believers, that the side of Allah shall prevail. So all one has to do is leap.
One of the things that strikes one in reading books from Pakistan, the analyses in their newspapers, judgments of their courts is the singular absence of subtlety, of shades. The analyses are gross: the categories are basic, the conclusions predictable. This is not the result merely of mental habits or capacities. Ideology makes grossness inevitable. Everything is either black or white, everyone is either a co-religionist or one who will some day deceive one, every engagement is going to turn out one way -- capitalism is certain to collapse, it is on the verge of collapsing, Allah is bound to come to the assistance of believers, His cause is bound to prevail...
There is another consequence -- Pakistani newspapers are replete with instances of it. The belief having been drilled into him that he is doing Allah's Will -- or, as in Marxism-Leninism, of History -- the believer just cannot believe that the fault may lie with him. As the war he is waging has been ordained by Allah, the one who is opposing him must, by definition, be doing so for some perverse reason, for some ulterior purpose. Pakistanis have been genuinely surprised at Washington's statements disapproving their crossing the Line of Control. They just cannot see that Pakistan might be in the wrong. Their analysts hint that the USA is tilting towards India because it is drooling at the prospect of India's large market! Commenting on a statement of the American Secretary of State, The Nation of June 6 remarks ruefully, "India being the bigger market for trade does not mean that the world should give up its moral values on political issues"! By the 8th, the paper is hinting at some even deeper mystery! Repeating the new fabrications on the Line of Control, the paper remarks in an editorial, "If despite India's strange illogicality, the US State Department chooses to buy the Indian accusations and discounts the Pakistani version of the incident, there has to be more to it than a fair assessment of the situation"!

The Indians cannot be fighting Pakistani troops because they have occupied Indian territory. They are doing so for some other, unworthy, deplorable reasons. Vajpayee is facing an election, and launching a war against Pakistan has been his party's traditional way of gathering votes! "The BJP government has collapsed despite its 'popular' nuclear policy," observes Najam Sethi's The Friday Times of 4-10 June in its editorial, "but it still clings to the old political tricks to garner votes. It is also hostage to an aggressive policy in Kashmir. If it lets up, the Congress will pillory it by adopting a more hawkish stance. India's politicians have therefore hog-tied themselves by their devotion to this vote-getting gimmick..." "They [the Indian politicians] have made de-escalation more difficult all round," it continues -- Pakistani troops cross the Line of Control, our forces, by fighting back, make de-escalation difficult! "The Congress government committed the 'popular' folly of sending troops to Siachin. But no later government has dared to withdraw troops from it..." So long as Pakistani troops were occupying Siachin it was far-sightedness, it became folly when Indians occupied it! And daring would consist in vacating Siachin for the Pakistani Army, not in holding it!

In this analysis the BJP government is strong enough to push its "old tricks to garner votes". In other analyses, the reason is the opposite! Writing in The Nation of 28 May, an analyst tells his readers that an Interim, weak government is in office in Delhi, and that "hawks in the Indian military establishment are ruling the roost," and that this is what accounts for the scale of the response, the air-strikes and the rest!
But such objective factors -- "old political tricks to garner votes" and the like -- are never enough for a believer. He must detect something deep, some fundamental perversity in the one who is being so obdurate as not to fall at the believer's feet. Predictably, therefore, that staple of Pakistani papers has returned: "Hindu cunning"! And this time, just as predictably, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee is the epitome of it. "Mr Vajpayee has proved more two-faced than his predecessor," notes The Friday Times. "Vajpayee -- the man who showed statesmanship by describing his visit to Minar Pakistan as 'the defining moment in history' -- has only appeared at the bar of history as a clumsy pygmy," The News of 30 May tells its readers. "A short-sighted and pathetically parochial politician whose instincts for political survival are both reactionary and jingoistic. His passion for the cheap thrill coupled with the BJP's desire to regain a foothold in contemporary Indian politics have resulted in airstrikes on Kashmiri freedom fighters..."
It isn't just information from which Ideology insulates one. Ideology insulates one from experience just as much. When the believer succeeds, he is confirmed in the belief that the Ideology has driven into him -- that Allah is with him. But the Ideology has also driven another notion into him -- a notion that protects the Ideology from an adverse outcome, but by the same token disables the believer from learning. When they are defeated, the faithful have been taught to conclude, Allah is just testing their faith: Allah has put defeat in their path, they have been taught, to ascertain whether at such a time they lose faith in Allah's promise. Do they abandon their faith in Allah?, Allah wants to see. Do they blame Him rather than themselves?, Allah wants to make sure.
This Ideology-induced deafness is compounded in the case of Pakistan by the essentially authoritarian nature of both -- its society as well as polity. In free, democratic societies there is incessant self-examination. In authoritarian societies pasting blame on The Other becomes nature. The defeat in Vietnam caused an enormous amount of introspection in America: it led, among other things, to new strategic thinking, to new technologies. The rout in Bangladesh caused none in Pakistan. We see the same sequence today. Indian forces are rolling back the Pakistanis in Kargil. Internationally Pakistan stands isolated as never before. But Pakistani press is singing hosannas: the success of the mujahideen in holding the Indian Army at bay has inspired the freedom fighters of Kashmir, they sing to themselves, the uprising against India will now reach new heights; the Kashmir issue has been "irretrievably internationalized," they exult; the world now realizes that Kashmir can be the nuclear flash-point, they declare to their own satisfaction.
These features hold for Pakistanis in general, immersed as they are in, committed as they are to an Ideology, Islam. Each of them is compounded ten-fold in the case of the officer and soldier of the Pakistan Army. Stephen Cohen has noted how the "Sandhurst" and "American" generations of their officers have passed, how the officer-class consists increasingly of persons from the lower middle class and peasant stock. In the country at large these classes are among the ones which have been swept up most by Islamic rhetoric: and, what with the continuing collapse of educational institutions, at an accelerating pace. The success which the Army has achieved through the Taliban in Afghanistan also buttresses the notion that "the time of Islam has returned".
There are other factors too. The more intense Islamic rhetoric has become, the more cut-off from outside influences and opinions Pakistan has become, the Army even more so than other sections: almost the only thing which has kept an aperture open to the rest of the world is Pakistan's technological backwardness -- because of this backwardness, it has had to continue relying on other countries for technical upgradation, and hence some contrary ideas must still be sneaking in. But it is a tiny aperture: the countries from whom it secures the weapons are also ones whose life and ways its Ideology teaches it to hate and reject.
Not only is the Army, like other sections of Pakistani society, insulated from the world, it is insulated from those other sections within Pakistan too. The Army is overwhelmingly Punjabi. Within that one province, its recruits are overwhelmingly from a small clutch of five or six districts.
Furthermore, that the Army has such an over-weaning, predominant status in Pakistani society and governance impels a certain deafness: few dare question what it says and does, all the greater reason for the Army to conclude that what it is thinking is valid. And there is another twist. The Pakistani Army has great power, overwhelming power vis a vis other sections of society, but not esteem. That went -- first with the way it lost Pakistan in 1971, and then with the mess that the Army made of the country during the years it had absolute sway, the Zia years. Since then, while the success in Afghanistan has restored its esteem somewhat, this is counter-balanced with the reputation for corruption, the reputation for being involved in the drug-trade etc. which have got stuck to it.
To the faith of the believer, therefore, has been added a compulsion -- to prove itself again.
Each of these factors applies to organizations like the ISI twenty-fold. And to the terrorist organizations the ISI etc. have spawned -- a hundred-fold.

In a word, Kargil is but the latest of what Pakistan will continue to inflict on us. Defeating each such venture with demonstrative harshness is as much a part of the peace-process as pursuing every opening like Lahore.

"What is the VHP? Whom does it represent? What is its locus standi?", the Supreme Court asked the other day -- and it seemed to have done so in a tone that triggered much delight among secularists.
‘‘A strange question,’’ the PM remarked in the Rajya Sabha. A member was up and shouting, actually several secular ones were, interrupting the Prime Minister. Who are the VHP?... They don’t represent the Hindus... They will put a bullet through me..., so what?... The members seemed quite beside themselves. If the mere mention of its name causes so much reaction, the PM observed, then it certainly has locus standi.
In matters of religion and faith, standing is not acquired by winning elections, he said. It depends on the esteem in which people come to hold one...
A telling answer in itself. And it left the critics non-plussed.
Another side to the question that had fallen from the Bench too would have struck you. The Bench did not ask, as the Constitution Bench had not asked, ‘‘Who is Mohammed Aslam, alias ‘Bhure’? Whom does he represent? What is his locus standi?’’ It did not ask, ‘‘What is the Babri Masjid Action Committee? Whom does it represent? What is its locus standi?’’ It did not ask, ‘‘What is the ‘All India Muslim Law Board’? Whom does it represent? What is its locus standi?’’ How is it that doubt assailed it only in regard to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad?
To put the matter at the least, the Bench could have looked up the Supreme Court’s own judgement in the Ayodhya case itself! ‘‘The movement to construct a Ram temple at the site of the disputed structure gathered momentum in recent years which became a matter of great controversy and a source of tension,’’ the judgement quoted the (Narasimha Rao) Government’s ‘‘White Paper’’ as saying. ‘‘This led to several parleys the details of which are not very material for the present purpose. These parleys involving the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the All India Babri Masjid Action Committee (AIBMAC), however failed to resolve the dispute...’’ Again, ‘‘At the centre of the Ram Janma Bhumi - Babari Masjid dispute is the demand voiced by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its allied organisations for the restoration of a site said to be the birthplace of Sri Ram in Ayodhya...’’
Yet again, ‘‘The VHP and its allied organisations base their demand on the assertion that...’’ And yet again, ‘‘The demand of the VHP has found support from the Bhartiya Janata Party...’’ And yet again, ‘‘It was also stated by certain Muslim leaders that if these assertions were proved, the Muslims would voluntarily hand over the disputed shrine to the Hindus. Naturally, this became the central issue in the negotiations between the VHP and the AIBMAC.’’
But suddenly, What is the VHP? Who does it represent? What is its locus standi?
In any event, that allusion to ‘‘parleys’’ holds a lesson we will do well to remember. One of the best things Mr Chandrashekhar did during his brief Prime Ministership was to get the two sides to agree that the only way to make progress was to exchange evidence on the matter. The two sides started meeting and exchanging documents and written arguments. The Babri Masjid Action Committee was guided by a clutch of Marxist historians -- actually, ‘‘guided by’’ is not quite right: it seemed just the front for these ‘‘eminent historians’’. The latter used the offices and facilities of the ICHR that they then controlled to prepare the AIBMAC submissions -- a fact that led the then Member Secretary to resign from his post.
The ‘‘evidence’’ that the Babri Masjid group submitted was no evidence at all. It was just a miscellaneous pile -- much of it puerile: that Rama was a King of Egypt, that he was born in Afghanistan, and the rest!
The VHP marshalled an array of evidence from archaeological sources, from historical records, from literary sources. That was the end of the ‘‘parleys’’! Realising that they could produce nothing to match what the VHP had submitted, the Marxist historians and the AIBMAC gentry just stopped attending the meetings. And it was this withdrawal, and the consequential death of the talks that Mr Chandrashekhar had initiated, as much as anything else that triggered the chain of events that led ultimately to the destruction of the mosque.
I did not doubt for a moment that the new efforts of the Shankaracharya of Kanchi would meet exactly the same fate. And for good reason. In one of the letters that he included in his 'A Bunch of Old Letters', Pandit Nehru used a phrase about Jinnah that describes this bunch, and its invariable device to the dot: ‘‘Mr Jinnah’s permanently negative answer,’’ Panditji wrote. This is the singular negotiating tactic of such individuals: just go on rejecting every formula that the other fellow brings up.
And the tragedy is -- the self-inflicted tragedy is -- that there always are persons, groups, powers that insist that the onus of producing the next formula, some formula which will incorporate an even greater concession to the other fellow is on us. And in the end we give in to this insistence. The power and groups that keep insisting that we go on producing new formulae: the British on the question of partition, the host of interlocutors on Kashmir, the secularists on the Ram Janmabhumi.

And the ones who merely keep deploying the ‘‘permanently negative answer’’: Jinnah kept rejecting every formula on partition; Pakistan keeps rejecting every formula on Kashmir; the Babri Masjid votaries keep, and will keep rejecting every formula on the Janmabhumi.

"Death is just an insignificant word for them," begins the report in The News of 28 November, 1997 on the annual gathering of the Mujahidin-e-Taiba. "Killing those who do not share their set of Islamic values is the only reality. The congregation was flooded with thousands of people with these beliefs..." "And the massive gathering of people delivered one message loud and clear," the paper reports, "there is no dearth of manpower in Pakistan for the fanatic forces to indoctrinate. 'If I die fighting, I will be greeted in heaven by Allah who will smile upon me,' said a 20-year old mujahid from Okra." The paper reproduces at length the views and exhortations of "Professor" Saeed who heads the organization which is conducting the congregation, the Jamaat Dawa-wal-Ishad. He conveys a simple message, it says : "It was God who had ordered the establishment of the law of Islam everywhere in the world." He calls for a jehad, says the paper, for ending the democratic system in Pakistan and turning it into "a pure Islamic State governed by strict Shariat laws." At the congregation he rejects democracy, proclaiming, "the notion of the sovereignty of the people is un-Islamic -- only Allah is sovereign." [That has been the provision in each of Pakistan's three Constitutions since the Objectives Resolution was passed in 1949.] And these notions have been well internalized by the congregation, the paper reports : "The whole place was full of signboards with slogans like 'Jamhooriat ka jawab, grenade and blast." (Our reply to democracy, grenade and blast). "The Dawa chief said his organization's main interest in Pakistan waas to pick people and train them to wage jehad in countries wherever an un-Islamic government was in power," the paper says. "God has ordained every Muslim to fight until his rule is established," he declared. "We have no option but to follow God's order."
As usual the weapons and moral of the participants strike awe. "The mediamen covering the event were shaken" The News says, "when a mujahid addressed the gathering from Bosnia and another from Kashmir via satellite phone. The latest wireless sets were in abundance, as of course were modern weaponry in the hands of youngsters." The paper carries and account of a youngster from Canada who has joined up for the jehad, and has thoroughly internalized the poison. "I would go to Kashmir as a volunteer but I have not yet been able to persuade my leaders to let me go," the paper quotes him as declaring, and adds, "He shares the dream of martyrdom with thousands of others who attended the annual gathering of the Mujahidin Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant wing of the group." "Rehman has no second thoughts about his decision to wage jehad against those who have enslaved Muslim brothers in the world... Abdur Rehman agrees with his leader's doctrine that democracy (sovereignty of the people) is anti-Islamic as it is against the basic principle of Islam that sovereignty belongs to Allah. He believes that it is the basic duty of every young Muslim to take up arms against those who do not believe in the Islamic system. 'We should fight against those who oppose the establishment of this system,' he states firmly. Muridke serves both as a headquarters for Dawa and a training ground for militants destined for aKashmir, Bosnia, Chechnya and the southern Philippines where Muslim communities are seeking self-determination. Rehman is ready to fight anywhere when he is needed. 'I know we are considered terrorists in the West, but I reject this title. A terrorist is someone who hates the world. We don't hate the world. I just want to bring about the system called for by God so that society can be happier', he says."
In addition to the account of the gathering at Muridke, the January 1998 issue of Pakistan's carries a detailed interview with the Amir of the Lashkar Taiba, Mohammed Khan. "There are Muslim organizations which preach and work on the missionary level inside and outside Pakistan," the Amir tells the correspondent, "but they usually steer clear of jehad. However, not only has the need for jehad always existed, the present conditions demand it more than ever."
Nor is the Amir at all reticent in naming the targets of the organization's jehad. He tells the publication,
"Our jehad is confined strictly to non-Muslims, and particularly Hindus and Jews, the two main enemies of the Muslims. The Quran too has declared these two groups to be enemies (of Islam). These two powers are creating problems for Muslims and for Pakistan. "To my mind the Hindus are what the Quran calls 'mushriks' (polutheists). This (Hinduism) is the worst form of shirk (polytheism) in which 30 million gods are worshipped. And from here shirk has been smuggled to other nations of the world. Hindus are creating problems for us directly. If God gives us the power we will enlarge the scope of jehad to include the Jews, who are the worst danger for the Muslims."
The Amir maintains that jehad is the cure for the sectarian strife which is tearing Pakistan -- his cure for it, in a word, is to export the conflict! The correspondent asks the Amir for his reactions to the charge that organizations such as the Lashkar have fomented a militancy which has in turn given rise to sectarianism, violence and crime. As one would expect, the Amir starts with a conspiracy theory :

"I feel that the opposite is true. For quite some time a conspiracy has been hatched against the Muslims. Shias and Sunnis have been made to fight each other, and Sunnis have been made to fight amongst themselves. A conspiracy has been hatched to encourage sectarianism, and its ill-effects are there for all to see. The conspirators did this to prevent Muslims from engaging in jehad. "The Jews have made this play in Egypt. They have made those people fight each other who could have fought against Israel. You find the same thing with the Shia-Sunni conflict. They (the conspirators) know that if Muslims are united, their wrath will be directed against the infidels."

Quite apart from everything else, if it really is the case that "if the Muslims were united, their wrath will be directed against the infidels," that would in itself constitute a complete case for fomenting the conspiracy which the Amir accuses the infidels of having hatched ! Not just that, the Amir prescribes jehad as the remedy for sectarian violence which is endemic to Islam ! He tells the publication,

"But if you study those people objectively -- those who have been engaged in jehad either in Afghanistan, Kashmir or elsewhere -- you will find that those who are making sacrifices have started coming closer together. Those who have joined jehad have been saved from sectarian conflict. "I see a large number of people who have left these useless things behind and are joining jehad in Kashmir. Neither the Milli Yakjehti Council nor Mr Nawaz Sharif can succeed in putting an end to sectarianism. The credit goes to jehad in Kashmir."

Indeed, in the Amir's considered view, jehad is the medicine not just for sectarian violence. It is the way to kick-start Islamic peoples into the new technologies!
The Amir says,

"In fact, when the Muslims were engaged in jehad, in the early days of their history, they had a grasp over science and technology. It was when Muslims gave up jehad that science and technology also went into the hands of others. This is natural. The one who possesses power also commands science, the economy and politics. The Christians won this power after a long time which began with the Crusades. It is very obvious - the technology which was centered at the Biatul Hikat in Baghdad has now been transferred to Europe. Today, if the Muslims really want to regain their former glory, it is not enough to do a PhD in Europe, although there is no harm in doing so. But achieving real power is a necessity."

He is circumspect, but only a bit, about the relationship of the organization with the intelligence and security agencies of Pakistan. Asked about it, the Amir says,

"If you wage jehad and that too against countries and organised armies, you cannot afford to make any mistakes. You must get help from wherever you can, whether it is from governments or individuals. Even if the Chinese Government agrees to help us against India, we should take the offer because, in order to break a target, you have to gather resources by all possible means. Despite the problems involved in outside funding, I feel that we should get help from wherever we can, from our Government or any other government which can help us against India."

The Amir is asked next for his views about democracy. He is explicit as can be :

"Democracy is among the menaces we inherited from an alien government. These are all useless practices and part of the system we are fighting against. Many of our brothers feel that they will be able to establish an Islamic system while working within this system. They are mistaken. It is not possible to work within a democracy and establish an Islamic system. This is trash, and you just dirty your hands dealing with it. If God gives us a chance we will try to bring in the pure concept of an Islamic Caliphate."

And how will the cadre be prepared for this overturning? The Amir comes back to his sovereign remedy, jehad :

"Pakistan is an ideal place for us to work in. We enjoy freedom to carry out our work and educational institutions are also located here. We will prepare mujahideen preachers and an alternative leadership. And through jehad, God will give this work success and countries will break. When change comes it will come when those opposing Islam will be crushed and then comes the time when you have to take the field."

"By force ?," asks the interviewer. "Yes," says the Amir, "that is a must."
The issue of The Herald carries a companion report about what it says is "the most widely circulated religious publication in the country," the Majla-al-Dawa. The magazine sold about 5000 copies in 1989, reports The Herald, now it sells around 70,000 copies. At Rs 12 per copy. It is the organ of the Dawa-al-Irshad. The Herald's account of the mind-set of the editor and his team, as well as of the contents of the magazine is as disturbing, as it is predictable.
"'The magazine team, and its editor in particular," The Herald says, "has traveled far and wide -- to shrines, temples, jails and even musical gatherings -- in search of 'satanic' practices. Once uncovered, these goings-on are written about in detail." The Herald's account continues,

"The enterprising editor, Amir Hamza, has traveled as far as Iran to uncover evil practices. During his travels to that country, he took the daredevil step of visiting its prisons and published a fascinating report, titled 'From Iran's jails and dungeons' ... "

In another such story, 'On the Tomb of the Homosexual Saint', the magazine reports from the annual festival of Madho Lal Hussain and informs its readers about the 'perverted ways' of the Saint and his followers. In a similar article on Riaz Gohar Shahi, another famous pir, the magazine traces his life-history in an attempt to prove that he was a fraud.
"However, no religious leader has received more attention from the Majla team than Tahirul Qadri, Chief of the Tehrik Millhajul Quran, a Barelvi Sunni group. Members of the Dawa are Ahle Hadith, expounding an austere, Arabic version of Islam. To them, Minhajul Quran's brand of religion is tainted with the influence of Hinduism. The Majla team is determined to 'purify' the Islam practiced in the subcontinent, and target Qadri so that 'those who do not know him may guard against his evil designs, and those who know him can nip the evil in the bud.'
"Not only does Majla take a hard-line against such 'evil designs', it is also severely critical of mysticism in Islam and considers this movement to be a deviation from the path of the Prophet...."
Nor are the concerns of the magazine limited to merely religious observances. The editors are in the forefront of campaigns to exorcise day to day life of the Devil and his conspiracies. The Herald mentions a special crusade which is glorified in a series of articles entitled, 'television murders'. "Here the television set is evil personified, and the ritual 'murder' of television sets at the hands of youngmen, mostly fresh converts to the Lashkar Taiba, are reported," The Herald informs us. "One such story reads : 'All the brothers and sisters were watching a film on the VCR when Nadim entered the room. His religious ghairat (pride) was stirred and, taking a brick in his hand, he broke the television set into pieces with two or three blows.' Where entire families are in agreement over the danger of television, TV sets are smashed ceremoniously on a stage at Lashkar meetings..."
And, of course, there are statements, exhortations, wills of "martyrs" who have "sacrificed their lives" for liberating Kashmir ! The Herald reproduces a typical letter from a "martyr" :

"My dear father, mother, brothers and sisters, "If you really love me, you should bear the news of my martyrdom with courage and be thankful to God. I request my mother and sisters to observe purdah, shun sin, say their prayers and pray to God to accept my martyrdom. I request my father to send my brothers for (military) training and also to educate others about jehad. It is an excellent path which leads straight to paradise. "I request you to break your television set soon after reading my will so that our house is free from the influence of Satan, and God is pleased with us all. I request you again to be thankful to God for my martyrdom. You should know that your son has died the death of a martyr. He did not die while drinking alcohol, watching a movie or television. Rather, he died fighting against the enemies of God, and is alive in Paradise forever.

"You should not pay heed to those who say that these people (the Lashkar Taiba) get our children killed in Kashmir. You should read the Quran and Hadith and see how God has ordered jehad and what great gifts have been set aside for martyrs. The Prophet of God has said, 'On the Day of Judgment, every martyr will be allowed to take 70 persons to Paradise.' It is a big gift. Do pray for me.

(Signed) Abu Marsad"

How convenient! Not only has the man made himself available for a "cause" which the Amir has selected, he has made it all the easier for the Amir to acquire replacements by making his closest relatives feel guilty if they fail to supply the remaining brothers to the Lashkar. He has advocated the very points that the Lashkar is urging -- right down to destroying the TV set! And he has so thoughtfully absolved the Lashkar from all criticism.
Notice too how very helpful are the accounts of Paradise and of the gifts that Allah has so thoughtfully provided in the hereafter for those who make themselves available to organizations like the Lashkar! But to revert to our immediate concern, Kashmir :
These accounts of the Lashkar and of the Dawa is typical. The Dawa is but one of a host of organizations which are dedicated to exterminating the conspiracies of Kafirs, in particular to "liberating" Kashmir from India.
That activity is now not just a religious mission for these organizations -- it is the honey-pot : it is the device which gets them money from Government, from the laity, from Islamic Governments and organizations abroad.

Their recruits are murdering people in Kashmir. And we are desisting from even giving information about the groups and about their proclaimed design to our own people...

The devout constructed so many mosques, Maulana Abdul Hai records, they lavished such huge amounts and such labors on them that they cannot be all reckoned, that every city, town, hamlet came to be adorned by a mosque. He says that he will therefore have to be content with setting out the facts of just a few of the well-known ones.
Qawwat al-Islam Mosque at Delhi
"According to my findings the first mosque of Delhi is Qubbat al-Islam or Quwwat al-Islam which, it is said, Qutub-Din Aibak constructed in H. 587 after demolishing the temple built by Prithvi Raj and leaving certain parts of the temple; and when he returned from Ghazni in H. 592, he started building, under orders from Shihabuddin Ghori, a huge mosque of inimitable red stones, and certain parts of the temple were included in the mosque. After that, when Shamsud-Din Altamish became the king, he built, on both sides of it, edifices of white stones, and on one side of it he started constructing the loftiest of all towers which has no equal in the world for its beauty and strength."
The Mosque at Jaunpur
"This was built by Sultan Ibrahim Sharqi with chiseled stones. Originally, it was a Hindu temple after demolishing which he constructed the mosque. It is known as the Atala Masjid. The Sultan used to offer his Friday and Id prayers in it, and Qazi Shihbud-Din gave lessons in it"
The Mosque at Kanauj
"This mosque stands on an elevated ground inside the Fort of Kanauj. It is well-known that it was built on the foundations of some Hindu temple (that stood) here. It is a beautiful mosque. They say that it was built by Ibrahim Sharqi in H. 809 as is recorded in Gharbat Nigar. "
The Jami Mosque at Etawah
"This mosque stands on the bank of the Jamuna at Etawah. There was a Hindu temple at this place, on the site of which this mosque was constructed. It is also patterned after the mosque at Kanauj. Probably it is one of the monuments of the Sharqi Sultans."
Babri Masjid at Ayodhya
"This mosque was constructed by Babar at Ayodhya which Hindus call the birth place of Ramchandraji. There is a famous story about his wife Sita. It is said Sita had a temple here in which she lived and cooked food for her husband. On that very site Babar constructed this mosque in H. 963 "
Mosques of Aalamgir Aurangzeb
"It is said that the mosque of Benares was built by Alamgir on the site of Vishweshwar Temple. That temple was very tall and held as holy among the Hindus. On this very site and with those very stones he constructed a lofty mosque, and its ancient stones were rearranged after being embedded in the walls of the mosque. It is one of the renowned mosques of Hindustan. The second mosque at Beneras is the one which was built by Alamgir on the bank of Ganga with chiseled stones. This also is a renowned mosque of Hindustan. It has 28 towers, each of which is 238 feet tall. This is on the bank of the Ganga and its foundations extend to the depth of the waters. Alamgir built mosque at Mathura. It is said that this mosque was built on the site of the Gobind Dev Temple which was very strong and beautiful as well as exquisite"
"It is said"
But the Maulana is not testifying to the facts. He is merely reporting what was believed. He repeatedly says, "It is said that".
That seems to be a figure of speech with the Maulana. When describing the construction of the Quwwatul Islam mosque by Qutubuddin Aibak, for instance he uses the same "It is said".
If the facts were in doubt, would a scholar of Ali Mian's diligence and commitment not have commented on them in his fullbodied foreword? Indeed, he would have decided against republishing them as he decided not to republish much of the original book.
And if the scholars had felt that the passages could be that easily disposed of, why should any effort have been made to take a work to the excellence of which a scholar of Ali Mian's stature has testified in such a fullsome manner, and what has been done to this one? And what is that?
Each reference to each of these mosques having been constructed on the sites of temples with, as in the case of Benaras, the stones of the very temples which were demolished for that very purpose have been censored out of the English version of the book ! Each one of the passages on each one of the seven mosques!
Indeed there is not just censorship but substitution. In the Urdu volume we are told in regard to the mosque at Kanauj for instance that "This mosque stands on an elevated ground inside the fort of Kanauj. It is well known that it was built on the foundation of some Hindu temple that stood here." In the English version we are told in regard to the same mosque that "It occupied a commanding site, believed to have been the place earlier occupied by an old and decayed fort".
If the passages could have been explained away by referring to the "It is said", why would anyone have thought it necessary to remove these passages from the English version -- that is the version which is likely to be read by persons other than the faithful? Why would anyone bowdlerize the book of a major scholar in this way?
Conclusions
But that, though obvious, weighs little with me. The fact that temples were broken and mosques constructed in their place is well known. Nor is the fact that the materials of the temples -- the stones and the idols -- were used in constructing the mosque, news. It was thought that this was the way to announce hegemony. It was thought that this was the way to strike at the heart of the conquered -- for in those days the temple was not just a place of worship; it was the hub of the community's life, of its learning, of its social life. So the lines in the book which bear on this practice are of no earth-shaking significance in themselves. Their real significance -- and I dare say that they are but the smallest, most innocuous example that one can think of on the mosque-temple business -- lies in the evasion and concealment they have spurred. I have it on good authority that the passages have been known for long, and well known to those who have been stoking the Babri Masjid issue.
(Several other modern Muslim historians and epigraphists accept that the fact that many other mosques including the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya stand on the sites of Hindu temples.)
That is the significant thing; they have known them, and their impulse has been to conceal and bury rather than to ascertain the truth.
I have little doubt that a rational solution can be found for the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi tangle, a solution which will respect the sentiments, the essentials, of the religions of all.
But no solution can be devised if the issue is going to be made the occasion for a show of strength by either side, if it is going to be converted into a symbol for establishing who shall prevail.
The fate of Maulana Abdul Hai's passages -- and I do not know whether the Urdu version itself was not a conveniently sanitized version of the original Arabic Volume -- illustrates the cynical manner in which those who spoke the passions of religion to further their politics are going about the matter.
Those who proceed by such cynical calculations sow havoc for all of us, for Muslims, for Hindus, for all. Those who remain silent in the face of such cynicism, such calculations help them sow the havoc.
Will we shed our evasions and concealment? Will we at last learn to speak and face the whole truth? To see how communalism of one side justifies and stokes that of the other? To see that these "leaders" are not interested in facts, not in the religion, not in a building or a site, but in power, in their personal power, and in that alone? That for them religion is but an instrument, an instrument which is so attractive because the costs of wielding it fall on others, on their followers, and not on them?
Will we never call a halt to them?

The problem that illicit small arms and light weapons constitute is well known. During the past decade these weapons have been the weapons of choice in 46 out of 49 major conflicts. They have claimed on an average, 300,000 lives. 90 percent of those killed have been civilians, and 80 percent of the killed have been women and children.
In India, we are particularly aware of the lethality of these weapons; in the past twenty years about 35,000 innocent persons have been killed by terrorists -- all using illicit small arms and explosives. The seizures of illicit arms and explosives by our security agencies -and surely these represent but a fraction of the quantities to which the terrorists have had access -- would be enough to equip a few divisions of a regular army: the numbers themselves demonstrate the magnitude of haemorrhage of illicit arms with which law-abiding societies are faced.
Nor are the effects limited to the deaths caused by organised terror and violence. Innocents also suffer because of gun inflicted homicides and random acts of violence: these by themselves account for two hundred thousand deaths every year.
No country or region has been spared the destructive consequences of proliferation of small arms and explosives. Open, plural and liberal societies are particularly vulnerable to their destablising effects in the hands of terrorists and insurgents. Entire communities are torn asunder. Democratic processes -- elections, for instance -- are perverted. Groups and agencies whose very nature is the antithesis of openness, of democracy, of plurality, are the ones that wrest dominance.
In a word, the problem is as grave as can be. And we need to act on it "with the urgency of a man whose hair are on fire."
The first step in tackling the problem is to sharpen our focus. It is true that of the 500 million small arms and light weapons currently held the world over, the illicit ones held by criminals, terrorists and armed insurgents and secessionists amount to around 5 million -- that is, about one percent. But five million is no small number by itself. And these are the ones that today inflict the most devastating effects on societies and countries. Similarly, while three-fourths of the small arms trade is legal, illicit trade in weapons and ammunition accounts for about one and a half billion dollars a year. We should focus on these illicit weapons, on this illicit trade.
Second, we should move to prevent further additions to the existing stockpile of illicit weapons. For this purpose the international community should develop a comprehensive tracing system. This in turn would entail marking weapons, comprehensively, at the production stage, detailed record-keeping and a ready willingness to share information. A collective approach alone will guarantee traceability and promote transparency. It will also give the signal that is required: that all of us are determined to join hands to roll back this menace.
Third, while transferring weapons, States must exercise due care and a sense of responsibility. Transfers to non-state actors or unauthorized entities are the catalyst for violence. Such transfers also run the greatest risk of unauthorized retransfers, thus breeding further destruction. An international norm against such transfers is therefore essential and timely.
Fourth, every study shows that the twin problems of the illicit trade in small arms and terrorism are inextricably intertwined with another lethal pair: the traffic in drugs and money laundering. The work of this Conference, therefore, will be greatly helped by, and should in turn facilitate international initiatives, that are underway on these related problems.
Fifth, an indispensable element of this programme must be the reconstruction of societies where conflicts have abated. In the years of violence that would have preceded, institutions and trust would have been shattered. People will give up arms more readily when they once again feel safe enough to trust their life and limb in the hands of State institutions. We must collectively strive to wean the fractured society away from the culture of violence to a culture of peace -- through recovery of illicit weapons, and by generating security through new institutional frameworks based on democracy, justice, equity and order in which economic and social development can be sustained. Such action requires international cooperation involving governments, non-governmental organizations and civil society at large -- it requires international cooperation of an even more comprehensive kind than the specific problem we are here to consider.
Afzal Saved; Indians Shamed.

So is this the Moment of the truth?

What I am expected to do? Feel proud and celebrate the “secularism”? OR shall hang my head in the shame?

What message is being conveyed to the brave soldiers? Is it that you will be sacrificed at the “altar” of secularism and the political expediency?

What is important INDIA or fist full of votes in UP elections?

How will the parents encourage their children to join the Armed forces? If this is how we treat the “memories” of those who laid their lives to protect “POLITICAL CLASS”, the question, which comes to any body’s mind, is

DID THEY DO RIGHT THING?

How I wish that Mr. CLEAN and Dr. Good or the Balidaan Devi answered to the nation.

I refuse to believe that neither of them have any time to answer to such a “COMMUNALIST”, as your truly.

This nation is mine too and like any other Indian who takes pride in being INDIAN, I have the right to demand these answers.

OR is it I am asking right questions but from wrong people?

Very Hurt and Shameful,

In painting Goddess Saraswati naked M.F. Hussein, his secularist advocates argue, is merely exercising his Fundamental Right to freedom of expression, he is merely giving form to his artistic, creative urge. The first question is: How come the freedom and creative urge of the thousands and thousands of artists our country has have never led even one of them to ever paint or draw a picture of Prophet Muhammad in which his face is manifest? I am not on the point of dress or undress, the features could have been made as celestial and handsome as our artists could have imagined -- why is it that they never got the urge to draw or sculpt even the handsomest representation of the Prophet?
The rationalization is that doing so would have hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims, the Prophet himself having forbidden all representations. The reason, as distinct from the rationalization, is different: were an artist to make such a representation Muslims would be ignited by their controllers to riot, they would not let that artist live in peace thereafter.
Notice first that in the lexicon of those who are shouting for Hussein the point about not hurting religious sentiments manifestly does not apply to the Hindus: in their case the alternate principle of the right of the artist to paint as he pleases takes precedence. The Hindus notice this duality more and more.
Indeed they notice the length to which some are prepared to exercise their right to give full rein to their creative urge, disregarding what Hindus might feel as a consequence. As recently as August last year, the art gallery of the INDIA TODAY group, ART TODAY held an exhibition of "modern Indian miniatures". Prominent among the paintings on display was one that showed a naked ( that is, completely naked ) Radha astride a naked ( that is, completely naked ) Lord Krishna -- the two fornicating in a garden. Posters with this painting prominently featured were put up inviting viewers to the gallery. The August, 1995 issue of the magazine, INDIA TODAY carried an advertisement -- urging readers to purchase prints of paintings which were on display at the gallery, the advertisement too featured prominently the same painting of Radha laying Lord Krishna in a garden. Some persons protested. No one heeded them. A demonstration was then held outside the gallery, the demonstrators entered the gallery. The painting was taken down. Friends who heard of the incident denounced the demonstrators: "Hindu bigots", "The saffron brigade on the look-out for issues," "Fascist goons who want to impose their constipated brand of Hinduism on everyone." To establish the principle, and even more to demonstrate the scorn in which they held "these goons" another publication, 'The India Magazine', as demonstrative about its secular credentials, put that very painting on its cover. That this was done with full knowledge that doing so was likely to offend others is evident from the fact that, simultaneously with putting the painting on the cover, the person most prominently associated with 'The India Magazine' applied for anticipatory bail.
Now, the collections of hadis contain scores and scores of descriptions of the Prophet, as they contain accounts -- accounts in the words and on the testimony of the Prophet's wives themselves -- about his relations with his wives; how is it that none of our artists have ever felt the creative urge to portray even accurately any of those descriptions, to say nothing of these magazines ever inviting their readers to purchase colorful reproductions of the paintings or putting the paintings on their covers and posters. Indeed I have not the least doubt that if they received even an article -- which, after all, can never be as tantalizing as a Hussein painting -- an article which did no more than reproduce verbatim those accounts, they would refuse to print it: all the great principles about not hurting the religious sentiments of others, all the provisions of law -- sections 153A, 295A, 298 -- will be invoked in justification. But when it comes to a painting of a naked Radha astride a naked Lord Krishna fornicating in a garden, carrying it in advertisements, putting that on the cover is a Fundamental Right, to object to it is to throttle an artist's right to give expression to his creative urge.
It is not the freedom of expression these worthies are committed to. They are committed to their having freedom alone: can you recall a single liberal protesting against the ban on Ram Swarup's Understanding Islam Through Hadis -- a book so scrupulously academic that it was but a paraphrase of the Sahih Muslim, one of the canonical compilations of hadis -- to say nothing of any one of them deigning to put in a word against goondas -- claiming to represent the Muslims -- who tried to get at me in Hyderabad or the goondas -- claiming to speak for the other lot these worthies champion, the "Dalits" -- who did get at me in Pune? Not one deigned to do so. They are not the champions and practitioners of free speech, they are the practitioners of a very special brand of the dialectic: Strong to the weak, Weak to the strong. And that is what the Hindus are noticing: neither the gallery nor the magazine spared a thought for the religious sentiments it might offend till the "goons" marched into the gallery, but they had but to march in and the painting was immediately taken down; Hussein was all defiance one day, but the moment some paintings of his were burnt, he was suddenly sorry....
"But nude representations are a part of our tradition. Look at Konark, look at Khajuraho," the advocates have been shouting. But what has the figure of a woman being had by a dog in Konark have to do with worship ? What basis is there for declaring the women portrayed there are Saraswati or Sita or Lakshmi ? And then, as a reader points out, there is the other consideration : depicting women completely naked has for centuries been very much a part of European painting and sculpture tradition; but do the artists not stop at using this tradition for portraying Virgin Mary naked?
And as for Saraswati being depicted naked, her image is set out in our iconography, in the mantras by which we invoke her; in all these she is referred to as "....yaa shubhra vastraavritaa....", as one "draped in white". That white dress draping her is one of the four distinguishing marks of representations of Goddess Saraswati -- the other three being that she holds beads in one hand, a book in another and the vina in a third.
"But I have every right to portray her as I will," a secular friend protested when I repeated to him this iconographic description to which one of the best known and sagacious authorities on our art had drawn my attention. Assume you do, but then you can't simultaneously claim that what you are doing is in accord with that tradition. Second, if painting Goddess Saraswati naked is an intrinsic part of our tradition because sundry women have been depicted naked and fornicating in Khajuraho and Konark, then, my dear friend, what about the Dasham Granth of Guru Govind Singh and its 300 treyi chitra? How come not one of you has ever been stirred by his creative urge to put on canvas any of those -- most vivid and vigourous -- pen-portraits? Is the work of Guru Govind Singh any less a part of the Sikh tradition than the Gita Govind? What about the scores and scores of hadis I mentioned earlier ? Alongside the Quran, they are not just any old element of Islam, they are the very foundation. Let us see you affirm the right of artists to depict images -- not imagined ones, not ones that depart from the mantras as the painting in question does, just the most scrupulously faithful and exact images -- of what is described therein.
The next argument of our artists and intellectuals is just as much a manufacture of convenience: "All our religions, everything about our past is the common heritage of all of us, it belongs to each of us equally," they have been saying. This presumably has been done to preempt those who would say that Hussein is particularly in the wrong to have painted Hindu goddesses naked because he is a Muslim. Fine. But how come so many of you are up in arms when I write on Islamic law? In particular, how come you work up such a fury even though, unlike a painter, I am not conjuring up an image and am instead documenting every single sentence and paragraph with the exact text of the sacred works of Islam? What happens at that time to this principle of all our religions and everything in our past being the common heritage that belongs to each one of us equally? Then these very magazines and intellectuals are full of sanctimonious sermons: If members of one religion start commenting on the practices and beliefs of other religions, there will be hell to pay, they proclaim.
It is this double-standard which outrages the Hindus more and more, it is this which these inchoate outbursts are revolts against.
Many Hindus also notice the other thing -- the one I mentioned as the reason as against the rationalization for no artist ever being galvanized by the creative urge when it comes to painting the features of the Prophet. They notice that the artists do not do so, not because these masters cannot do so, nor because their muse never goads them in this direction, but because they know that, were they to do so, they would be set upon. And that the State -- which is weak, and which also has internalized the same double-standards to rationalize its weakness -- will not come to their rescue. Therefore, more and more Hindus are concluding that we too should acquire the same reputation, we too should acquire the same capacity. In a word, three things are teaching the Hindus to become Islamic: the double-standards of the secularists and the State, the demonstrated success of the Muslims in bending both the State and the secularists by intimidation, and the fact that both the State and the secularists pay attention to the sentiments of Hindus only when the Hindus become a little Islamic.
The secularists' shout, "But these things destroy the very basis of our culture." The Hindus see that argument as being no better than the Devil quoting the Scripture, or, to put it in words the secularists would find more persuasive, than my quoting the Quran: for they know that these are the very persons who have been deriding them for living a life rooted in that culture, they are the ones who have been denouncing that culture and every thing associated with it -- the idols, the beliefs, the rituals -- as being nothing but devices which the Brahmins have forged to perpetuate inequity, to perpetuate exploitation of the poor masses.
The arguments of the secularists therefore are mere pretense. Yet I believe that it was plain wrong to break the window-panes and burn the paintings. Free speech is vital for our country. If it is curbed, what will be killed is not a painting but reform -- for all reform offends as it is a voice against the way things are at that moment. I believe that even if one's singular concern is Hinduism and its rehabilitation, free speech is the best guarantee: the more Eastern religions -- Hinduism, Buddhism and others -- are subjected to critical inquiry the more their luminescent essence shines forth; by contrast the Semitic religions -- down to Marxism-Leninism -- wither at the first exposure to exegesis and inquiry: and the controllers of these religions have been very conscious of this, that is why they have for centuries together put inquiry down with a lethal hand. The twin principles which the champions of Hussein's right to paint as he will have been proclaiming are the exact pincer which will work -- the principle that there must be freedom of speech and that every religion, and the principle that every aspect of our past is the common heritage of each of us equally. All we should ensure is that these principles hold good for all equally. And when someone paints like Hussein did in this instance, instead of burning his paintings we should use them to document the double-standards which mar current policies and discourse, and demand that either the standard apply to all or to none. Thus : education, not burning; parity, not suppression.
In Hussein's case in particular, I feel that the youngsters who took offence missed a very vital point -- not just about his painting but about his life. He is and has continued to be a Muslim. Now, as anyone who has read anything about the Prophet knows, the Prophet cursed and detested those who made representations of things. He put pictures at par with dogs, and, remember, he had all dogs killed. "The angels do not enter a house," he declared on the authority of the angel, Gabriel, "which contains a dog or pictures." Abu Huraira, the source of a large proportion of the hadis, states that God's Messenger narrated that Gabriel had promised to visit him one day but didn't turn up, and so, when he came the next day, the Prophet inquired as to what had happened. Gabriel, the Prophet narrated, said, "I came to you last night and was prevented from entering simply by the fact that there were images at the door, for there was a figured curtain with images on it and there was a dog in the house. So, order that the head of the image which is at the door of the house be cut off so that it may become like the form of a tree; order that the curtain be cut up and made into two cushions spread out on which people may tread; and order that the dog be put out." "God's Messenger," the hadis concludes, "then did so." His wife, Aisha tells us, "The Prophet never left in his house anything containing figures of a cross without destroying it." She recalls how the Prophet reprimanded her for two cushions she had made because they contained pictures. The Prophet declared that those who made representations of things "will receive the severest punishment on the day of resurrection," that "Everyone who makes representations of things will go to hell." He declared them to be "the worst of God's creatures." He put them at par with "the one who kills a prophet, or who is killed by a prophet, or kills one of his parents." [ Several other hadis, and of course several instances can be cited; for the few which have been quoted see, Mishkat Al-Masabih, Muhammad Ashraf, Lahore, Volume II, Book XXI, Chapter V, pp. 940-44. ]
Hussein on the contrary has made painting images his very life. Therefore, in a very deep sense, his entire life is an endeavour to open an aperture in that wall of prohibitions. It has been a banner for liberalism, indeed for liberation.
In sum, I am for Hussein, not for his champions;
The position which Hussein's champions have taken up is just the one which our society needs;
We should hold them to their word, and have them stick by it in the case of one and all;
And we should await the day when their muse will lead them to exercise their creative urge, "that one talent which is death to hide," paint as freely and with as much abandon themes from all our religions and traditions.

Finally, a forecast : the more the secularists insist on double-standards, the more Islamic will the Hindus become.

Lucknow: A teenage Muslim girl was killed by her parents last night and her body chopped into pieces because she dared to elope and marry the man she loved.

Mohsina Akhtar's murder came to light when Muzaffarnagar police stopped three persons carrying a huge gunny bag. Inside were pieces of the 18-year-old's body and a chopper and an axe used in the "honour killing".

Superintendent of police (rural) Arvind Pandey said the three Mohsina's mother Iqbal Jehan, maternal uncle Kallu Mohsin and brother Mohsin - confessed they were on their way to dump the pieces in a canal near Lalauna, the west Uttar Pradesh village where Mohsina was murdered.

Pandey said Iqbal told him it was the body of a "shaitan" (devil). "Yeh shaitan meri beti thi. Humne unko maar dala (This devil was my daughter. We have killed her)."

"All three admitted that they killed Mohsina because she loved a Muslim boy from a neighbouring village and married him after eloping a month back," the officer said. "I have handled many such incidents of honour killing but this was one of the most gruesome."

Police sources said the girl's father, Mohammad Akhtar, who hasn't been arrested, will be questioned tomorrow.

Senior superintendent of police Sushil Kumar said Iqbal, who has another daughter, didn't betray any remorse. "When they were produced in court today, she was silent, as were Kallu and Mohsin. Iqbal said she had to kill her. She said she was not feeling good after the murder but has no regrets," the SSP added.

Residents said one reason for the lack of regret is the increasing social recognition such honour killings - common in the northwest frontier region of Pakistan - are getting in western Uttar Pradesh.

"Villagers often pool money to bear the legal expenses of a family that kills a wayward daughter," said a resident of adjoining Baghpat.

"An elopement makes it difficult for a family to get a match for other daughters," said Rajiv Soni, a social worker.

According to police files, 23 cases of honour killings have been reported in the Baghpat-Muzaffarnagar-Saharanpur-Bijnor region since 2006, including six this year in Muslim families. Yesterday, a woman who had been forced into marriage was shot dead by her brother for refusing to go to her marital home.

"I suspect hardcore fundamentalist elements are encouraging these incidents," said Shaista Amber, a member of the All India Muslim Women's Personal Law Board.

Mohsina had fallen in love with Mukhtar Mahmud, 20, a resident of Bilaspur, a village about 2km from her home. The family had recently shifted to Lalauna, where Mohsina's maternal uncles live, and found that neighbours knew about the affair. Her uncle Kallu told the police that the family tried to stop her as society frowns upon such relationships.

But Mohsina and Mukhtar eloped and got married last month. Soon, the whispers "inki ladki bhaag gai hai" - got louder. The family's instant reaction was fear of social ostracism. Iqbal had to marry off another daughter. So Mohsina had to be killed.

Unconfirmed reports said a small group of elderly residents also ruled that Mohsina should be killed to protect the family's honour.

The young couple made the mistake of returning home last week. Last night, Mohsina was hanged from a ceiling fan of a room in her maternal uncles' house. Her body was then taken to a cattle shed where it was cut into pieces.

World Citizenship

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

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Muslims all over the world including those of India were hopefully looking up to Pakistan for help and guidance

Very Hurt and Shameful,

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