From: jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed A Khan)
Subject: Re: [contd.] Conflict: Remedies
Reply-To: jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed A Khan)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 17:53:46 GMT

In article <UdviT2G00VB=4=sl48@andrew.cmu.edu>, "Arun K. Gupta"
<ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
> 
> 
> Conclusion of:
> 
> Hindu-Muslim Conflict in India: Causes and Remedies
> 
> by Iqbal Ansari (Dept. of English, Aligarh Muslim University)
> ***
> 
> 
> 
> Muslim leadership will be well advised to take the following measures
> to contribute towards lessening of communal conflicts and tensions:
> 
> 1) In their efforts to protect their life, limb, honor and property,
> they should make common cause with all groups, parties, and movements
> that are committed to securing human and democratic rights for people,
> especially those who are weak and unprotected, irrespective of their
> religion. Muslims should never think in terms of making it an exclusive
> concern of their own. They should not and cannot build their own
> defences in isolation.
> 
> 2) In normal times, Muslims should massively participate in actions and
> programs, initiated by themselves or others, that are directed towards
> securing social, economic and political justice for Indian people as
> human beings. They should not make it dependent on any cost-benefit
> evaluation for their own community. The apathy and the attitude of
> passive spectator that their leaders have nurtured in them towards
> issues that concern mankind and fellow Indians is to be replaced by an
> attitude of commitment, involvement and participation in all right
> causes. This will provide the surest bond of fraternization with other
> groups of people.
> 
> 3)Instead of quibbling about the compatibility of secular democracy
> with Islam, which in any case is not a practical alternative in India,
> Muslims should try to strengthen by all possible means the
> liberal-humanistic and secular-democratic framework and the values and
> principles underlying the Constitution of India. There may be
> differences of opinion about the blueprints of social and economic
> programs to secure secular values, but these can be accomodated withing
> the liberal democratic framework. Any attempt to project Islam or any
> other religion as a competitor for political power in India will do
> harm to the Muslims, Islam and the country. It is bound to give rise to
> communal conflict and tension.
> 
> 4) Muslims, especially those who are concious of their Islamic destiny,
> have to remind themselves that the most important aspect of Islam,
> apart from belief in God and the hereafter, is its moral idealism which
> needs to be translated into familiar human terms and idiom, and
> actualized in socio-economic programs for all humans.
> 
> 5) Any activist plan of work based on Islamic moral idealism for
> justice will not rid the society of all conflicts and tensions. These
> will be generated in ample measure. But they will have no communal
> parameters. The dimensions of conflict will change. They will not be
> between Hindus and Muslims but between the exploiters and the
> exploited. To wage a jihad against the exploitative system will again
> forge bonds of fraternity among members of all communities.
> 
> 6) In their search for and consolidation and assertion of their
> Muslim-Islamic identity, Muslims cannot ignore the fact that
> historically and ethnically, they are a part of Indian society, from
> which they cannot uproot themselves.  The onslaughts that they are
> facing from small sections of caste-Hindus should not make them swerve
> from the path of striking a right balance between their Islamic and
> Indian identities.
> 
> 7) Sections of Muslim masses presently engaged in a competition of
> vulgarization of religion with their Hindu counterparts in the form of
> ever increasing processions, and use of public address systems, should
> be prevailed upon to unilaterally withdraw from it, as on introspection
> they will realize that all this fanfare of religion is based not on
> piety or on cultural autonomy but on sheer vanity. The beauty of Islam
> is being spoiled by such vulgarization.
> 
> 8) Muslim religious susceptibilities are on occasions too easily hurt.
> Some mischievous persons will always try to provoke Muslims by hurting
> them. But Muslims have to develop greater maturity to be able to deal
> with poise such mischief-mongers, who for example, would like the Holy
> Quran or parts of it to be proscribed.
> 
> 9)Muslims should establish and use all existing avenues of dialogue
> with all other sections, groups and communities at all levels -- of
> masses as well as of educated opinion-makers. In this they should not
> write off any leftist or chauvinist groups on an a priori basis.
> 
> ***
> [concluded]
> ***
> arun gupta
> ag3L@andrew.cmu.edu





A fairly good set of 'First principles' to act upon.



--Javed
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh