What is needed is a total focus on quality education, business and gender respect within Muslim community
siyasat.net Baroda
(J.S.Bandukwala is a former professor of nuclear physics at MS University of Baroda. He is based in Vadodara, Gujarat, working for upliftment of poor and downtrodden of all communities for several decades. He spoke with Abdul hafiz lakhani, editor of www.siyasat.net)
Note that India desperately needs a truly secular political party. Muslims have all along placed a high faith in this party. Right when they were needed sorely, the Congress is just disappearing before their eyes. Where do we go ?
To our misfortune, the core BJP/RSS belief is a Hindutva state, in which Muslims would become practically non citizens. Such a state would give full freedom to aggressive majoritarianism. No wonder, even before the BJP won the latest Lok Sabha elections, horrible lynchings of poor Muslims occured, particularly in the BJP dominated states of UP, Haryana and Jharkhand.
The nature of these brutalities inflicted on helpless isolated Muslims, has generated a wave of panic not just in these three states, but even all over the country. It has also dented India’s image abroad as the land of Buddha and Gandhi.
Yet the hardest was the manner in which the Modi Government took over the only Muslim majority state, Jammu and Kashmir. In an unprecedented political and constitutional attack, the rights given to the state for the last almost 70 years were taken away. The entire structure evolved by Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah to boost the confidence of the Kashmiri Muslims in India, was done away with by a simple vote of the Indian parliament. In short Muslims have become orphans. What do we do now?
We cannot afford to lapse into self pity or its other extreme, anger. Our population is very huge. By current projections, by 2060 Indian Muslim population will be 330 million, the largest in the world. Our numbers are our strength. But they are also a burden, primarily because the level of illiteracy is very high. This is more so among our women. Even among our school going boys and girls, the quality of education imparted is low. The only exception is in upper middle class and rich Muslims, where the best education is generally provided.
Fortunately, this group is well linked to the bureaucracy or political parties or business. They can be the saving grace for our unfortunate community.Yet unfortunately, there is such a vast socio-economic imbalance between this upper elite and the rest of our community, that only in rare cases this upper cream is able to reach out to help and lift their remaining brothers and sisters. This is more likely to occur when the community faces a severe challenge. Such a situation is developing in the aftermath of the actions in Kashmir.
The reactions to the vulgar demands of the saffron fanatic fringe, will drive the Muslim elite to help these poor and lower middle class Muslims. As an example, newspapers in the last few days have referred to some BJP leaders of UP and Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar gloating in public about Hindus marrying beautiful Kashmiri women. However, Khattar, later on, denied having made such a statement.
What is needed is a total focus on quality education, business and gender respect within our community. To begin with, Muslims must curtail excessive Haj and Umra. I know of a friend in Vadodara who went for Umra 35 times. That is a huge diversion of our limited resources.
The community leaders must educate our elite that Haj is compulsory once in our lifetime. Beyond that the rich should help out the poor in their own locality to get good education. That would please Allah very much.That is the only way to tackle the hate campaign of the BJP.
