Author: S Gurumurthy
Publication: The New Indian Express
Date: August 24 2006
URL: http://www.newindpress.com/column/News.asp?Topic=-97&Title=S.Gurumurthy&ID=IE620060823095651&nDate=&Sub=&Cat=&
Last week the All India Muslim Personal Law
Board vowed not to allow Muslim children sing the National Song 'Vande Mataram'
as required by none other than the 'secular' UPA government's most 'secular'
Minister, Arjun Singh.
But the ALMPLB made a generous concession
in favour of 'Jana Gana Mana' saying that Muslims had 'no problem' in singing
the National Anthem. Soon other Islamists joined to oppose 'Vande Mataram'.
The reason: the song, which hails Bharat Mata, is against Islamic principles,
they said. Vande Mataram, which so offends them, is no ordinary song but the
very soul of our freedom movement. Post freedom, 'secular' politics had hidden
the role of 'Vande Mataram' from most young Indians. So some recall of the
history of this song is necessary.
When the Constituent Assembly discussed whether
'Vande Mataram' should be the National Anthem or 'Jana Gana Mana', Pundit
Nehru described the argument as between 'Vande Mataram' and 'Jana Gana Mana'
was 'unfortunate'. He said that 'Vande Mataram' was 'obviously and indisputably
the premier national song of India' with 'a great historical tradition, and
intimately connected with our struggle for freedom.' 'That position,' he said,
'it was bound to retain and no other song can displace it.' He declared, 'Vande
Mataram will continue to be the national song par excellence.'
Muslim representatives in the Constituent
Assembly agreed on this. The history of this great song dates back to the
19th century. Rabindranath Tagore first sang this song in the Calcutta Congress
session of 1896. Later, in 1920s, Muslim separatists began opposing the song.
Still, the Congress Working Committee, which met at Calcutta on October 26,
1937, under Nehru's leadership, recalled that 'the song and the words thus
became the symbols national resistance to British imperialism' and asserted
that they 'ever remind us of our struggle for national freedom' -_note the
words 'ever remind us'. The present opposition to Vande Mataram is obviously
a tragic replay of the Islamic separatist ideology that emerged in 1920s,
graduated as anti-national movement in 1930s and finally led to Partition
in 1940s, with the nationalist leadership compromising with separatists at
every stage.
But see the frightening contrast now. The
Islamist clergy sees danger to Islam in a song that was central to our freedom
movement. But, horrifyingly, it sees no danger in the emergence of Islamic
terror, particularly the home grown one. The clergy in Islam _ why even those
claiming to be liberals among Islamists _ do not view the rise of Islamist
terror as a danger to Islam. They do not see, for instance a dangerous terror
out fit like the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) as a danger to
Islam. Heard of a single recognised Muslim voice speaking a word against SIMI
or SIMI-like Jihadi outfits mushrooming in this country?
If fatwa could be issued against Islamic children
singing a patriotic song, why not issue such a one against anti-national Islamic
terrorists who hurl bombs and kill innocents? If they could ban a nationalist
song, why not bombs and bomb-throwing SIMIs. Why are they silent, deafeningly?
The benevolent reason in their favour could only be that they are as much
afraid of terror. And that they are also frightened to say that they are so
afraid!
It is surprising therefore that the Islamic
leadership in India is worried about the suffix 'terror' that has got added
to Islam in public discourse. So worried, a few of them rushed to Sonia and
Singh the other day, pleading that the whole Islamic community should not
be linked to terror.
Little do they realise that it is not the
Indian government that links Islam to terror. Terror is characterised as Islamic
in global discourse. It does not need a seer to find why the world sees link
between terror and Islam and why Sonias and Manmohans cannot unlink the two.
First, the Islamist leadership sidesteps and escapes what should worry them
more than it worries others. That is it is not just that all terrorists are,
by accident, Muslims, but that terror originates in some interpretation of
the Islamic faith that inspires the terrorists to turn Jihadis die and mass-kill
others.
Not a single Islamic school has challenged
the terror outfits for a debate on Islam, which the leaders claim as a religion
of peace and which the terrorists claim as sanctioning terror, to establish
that the terrorists are anti-Islamic! On the other hand, the Islamist leadership
escapes facing this stark reality _ of the terrorists claiming inspiration
from the Islamic faith for their acts _ by pleading that it is the Islamic
tag to terror that harms Islam and Muslims, not the Islamic face of the terror
itself.
Next, the world sees _ and so do most Indians
_ the Islamist leaders condemning the terror but not name and condemn the
terror outfits that perpetrate terror. The question is: when Islamic leaders
call terror un-Islamic why can't they name SIMI or LeT or the several Jihadi
outfits as anti-Islamic. Understand why the terror tag attaches to Islam and
Muslims? Sooner the Islamist leaders realise that danger to Islam comes from
not such innocuous things as Vande Mataram, but from the deafening silence
of the community when SIMIs and Jihadis do death dance in the name of Islam,
the better for them and the country.
