Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 5, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/213460/Jamiat's-insidious-agenda.html
Rejecting Vande Mataram is insulting India
The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has not done the Muslims
of India any favour by adopting a clutch of resolutions that not only reflect
the regressive agenda of the ulema but also strengthen the stereotyping of
the community as backward-looking and refusing to change with the times. The
most provocative of the resolutions is the one which endorses the 2006 fatwa
issued by Darul Uloom, Deoband, prohibiting Muslims from singing the National
Song, Vande Mataram, even in its truncated form which is the 'official' version.
That the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind should have thought it fit to recall a fatwa
issued three years ago is not without design: Clearly the mullahs who had
gathered for the organisation's 30th general session at Deoband intended to
demonstrate that the Muslim community is not bound by the national identity
with other Indian communities. In a sense, the resolution against Vande Mataram
is as much a reiteration of Muslim separatism as the resolution which calls
upon Muslims to "don their Islamic identity" and say salam instead
of namaste. Both the resolutions are of a piece with the 23 others that seek
to carve out a separate space for India's Muslims where they will have the
right to deprive women of their dignity as "bringing women into the mainstream
will create social problems and issues including their security", enforce
sharia'h on girls once they are 10 years old, prevent people from watching
either cinema or television, and say no to the state's efforts to contain
diseases like AIDS and polio. In brief, the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind wants a separate
state within the Indian state which will be ruled by mullahs. At the same
time, the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind wants all the benefits of a secular state to
accrue to the Muslims. Apart from jobs in the public sector and education
funded by tax-payers, the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind also wants proportionate representation
for Muslims in elected bodies, including Parliament. The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind
does not want the Government to interfere with madarsas by way of setting
up a Central Board because theological schools are meant to produce clerics.
If so be the case, then the Government must not only cut-off all funding for
madarsas but also withdraw recognition for certificates issued by theological
schools. The public exchequer is not meant for producing Islamic clerics.
Tragically, the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind's antediluvian
though insidious agenda and its provocative assault on Indian nationhood by
reiterating the fatwa against Vande Mataram have been legitimised by the presence
of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram at the Deoband gathering. This is not
to suggest that he was party to the outrageous resolutions; after all, as
Mr Chidambaram has pointed out, all this was done before he arrived to address
the gathering. But two points merit mention. First, as Home Minister, he should
have been aware of what had transpired at the meeting. The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind
did not keep the resolutions a secret; on the contrary, they were posted on
the organisation's website. Second, it was expected of him to unequivocally
condemn the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind's denigration of the National Song and register
his disagreement with the ulama's vision of a joyless world where women are
treated as no more than chattel and where modernity is shunned with vengeance.
It is immaterial that the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has craftily parroted the oft-quoted
definition of jihad as being different from terrorism. Such vacuous declarations
convince nobody, least of all jihadis who kill in the name of Islam.
