Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.pakistan
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 11:11:03 -0400 
From: "Arun K. Gupta" <ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: (II) Muslim Situation in India




Part II of:

The Muslim Situation in India: Some Observations
by Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqui
(Prof. of Economics, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, former prof.
of Islamic Studies, Aligarh)


In the long run, a minority can counter violence and falsehood only by
moral force. Truth and morality have the capability of enlisting the
support of good people from everywhere and anywhere.  But truth and
moral values have certain well defined demands.  You cannot throw them
to the winds at the slightest provocation and still expect the
blessings which Allah has reserved for the truthful and the morally
upright.  You must adhere steadfastly to the values relating to respect
for innocent lives, honor and property.  That you are under attack
does not give you a license to attack innocent people on the pretext
that they belong to the same community to which the attackers belong.
No ends can justify means which are immoral in themselves.  The
universally recognized right ot self-defence does not entitle Muslims
to forsake Islamic teachings and behave as common killers and
arsonists.  Should you adopt this way the damage you would do to Islam
would far exceed the damage you would invite unto yourselves, which
damage will itself be many times the damage you could do to others.
Justifying immoral behaviour on the basis of the exigencies of a
passing situation is moral opportunism; and nothing corrupts the human
soul as moral opportunism does.  A people who allow the souls to be
corrupted in this manner can hardly come out of the morass they sink
into. How can they ever attain the status of a moral community ordained
by Allah to be the moral guides of His people ?


I wish and pray that the Millat rises above the ad hoc responses it is
presently making to the situation and adopt a posture befitting it as a
moral community.  One of the first tasks its religious and political
leadership should take up is to discuss the situation, especially the
communal riots, with the saner sections of the majority community
inside and outside the ruling parties, at the Center and in the State.
This should be done not in the context of recent happenings in Meerut
and elsewhere but in the long-term context of the peaceful co-existence
of the two communities.  I hope there will be a sufficient number of
intellectuals, statesmen, and religious personalities in the majority
community to make their task easier by their warm and imaginative
response.
Let us now turn to the two perennial sources of the community's
weakness, i.e., economic and educational backwardness. Here the crucial
questions are: do they enjoy equal opportunities or do they face
discrimination ?  Are they entitled to some special measures to be take
by the state for their economic uplift and educational advancement ?
And last but not least, do they have the drive, the initiative and the
motivation to forge ahead despite heavy odds ?

Muslim leadership is on record with repeated complaints of
discrimination, in both the public and the private sector, in relation
to employment and other opportunities.  In this they have the support
of many other observers, including those in the ruling party.  But the
Hindu communal organizations reject this view and, instead, complain
about undue favor being shown to Muslims.  The fact remains, however,
that their share of jobs is far below their population ratio. Their
detractors ascribe this to their lack of qualifications, rooted in
their educational backwardness.  In education, again, the same scenario
is repeated. Muslims complaints of discrimination are countered by the
charge of lack of initiative and perseverance which, again, has
something to do with their poverty.  Apportioning blames can hardly
solve our problems.  The whole matter requires detailed analysis,
taking the various regions of the country and the different sections
of the economy separately. The uncertainties created by opposing
hypotheses relating to employment, etc., can be removed only by factual
studies. As things stand now these uncertainties paralyze action and
provide an excuse for apathy at the official level. Let the country as
well as the community understand the situation in the light of facts
and figures.  This will enable them to distinguish between causes.
emanating form official inaction and those which can be removed by the
community itself through hard work and initiative.


It is very important that the community should know what it can itself
do to improve its lot. It can hardly afford merely to complain and
passively wait for others to remedy the situation.  A general feeling
that something must be done to improve the educational condition of the
Muslims is not going to do much good.  The situation is far too complex
to be amenable to simplistic generalised approaches.  Education means
anything from literacy to primary and secondary education, vocational
training, technical skills creation, higher education and scientific
research.  How much, for whom and through what institutional
arrangements, are some of the details to which the community leaders
must attend while planning for the educational advancement of the
community.  The details of such a plan must be tailored to suit the
market demand for various kinds of skills. It should also take into
consideration the religious and cultural needs of the community.

Economic uplift is not entirely dependent on jobs in the public
sector-- the issue which has been the main subject of attention. Once
adequate measures have been taken to impart education and create needed
skills among Muslim men and women, it is also important to guide them
to the many ways of self employment, from the one-man handicrafts to
the mechanised factories.  No effort at the economic uplift of a
community can succeed if it by passes the peasantry and the
under-employed rural labour. This brings us to the crucial issue of
motivation, initiative and hard work.


I, for one, strongly feel that Muslims are, by and large, weak on this
count, and part of the responsibility for this weakness lies with their
religious and political leadership.  It is ironical indeed that the
Ummah for which historically it was its religious mission that provided
the motivation for economic enterprise (so that they acquire enough
means to live a healthy, well-provisioned life and have something to
spare, for the cause of Allah) should now find no stimulus from that
source.  Look at the religious and political movements amongst Muslims
during the last few centuries and you will find little attention to the
economic dimension.  Their general approach to economic enterprise has
been static and lukewarm.  The current apathy is a result of a long
period of stagnation.  Can we end it merely by a call to action ?

Muslims are not a worldly people so that you can rely on worldly
motives to take care of their economics.  They are a people who believe
in Allah and the life hereafter.  They have a sense of belonging to the
Ummah at large, the international Islamic community with which they
share the perception of a destiny that is global and forward looking.
As a community they are moved only by something emanating from their
belief and perception, not by the worldly economic motives which are by
nature individualistic.  Not even by patriotism, the sense of belonging
to the Indian nation as a territorial context, i.e., of the fact that
they are charged with the mission of communicating the message of Allah
to the Indian humanity.  In brief, for economic motivation to be strong
among Muslims it must have a religious sanction.  Nothing works with
this community if it does not have a religious sanction.  Unfortunately
the secularists are under the illusion that they can ignore this
historical and psychological fact.  The religious activists among
Muslims have, on the other hand, somehow lost the economic dimension of
the Islamic mission during the last few centuries of stagnation.  It is
for the Ulema and the leaders of the Islamic movement to draw the
community out of this stagnation by setting the perspective right and
present them with a future that can dynamise them.


Of the three crucial questions noted above we have yet to answer the
one relating to the need for any special measures for economic uplift
and educational advancement of the Muslim community.  Much has been
said for and against a policy of reservation and quotas, etc.  I do not
intend to enter into that controversy.  I would only stress the need of
objective factual studies before a decision is taken in this regard.
The Constitution provides ample scope for the state coming to the help
of the weaker sections of the society.  That in itself is not
debatable.  Whether Muslims in any region of the country or any sector
of the economy deserve such attention, and whether such attention will
do them the good that is intended, is what needs to be ascertained.

Considerations relating to the security, economic uplift and
educational advancement do not exhaust all that is relevant to the
Muslim situation in India --  the subject of our deliberations.  There
are other religious, cultural, linguistic and political issues that
merit discussion, should time permit.  But the three issues I have
chosen occupy the center of the stage.  Handle them properly and the
situation will improve to the advantage of all concerned.  If they are
mishandled the situation may go out of hand with serious consequences
for the country.  No country can live in peace and make any progress
with one-eighth of its population feeling insecure and sliding
backwards.

There are things happening which must not be allowed, regardless of who
the sufferers are. What is going to happen to a society which allows
its police to shoot its citizens, or its army to shoot them without
provocation ?  If politicians are allowed to engineer riots with a view
of teaching a lesson to a section of voters, or winning the support of
another section, the country they rule can hardly survive.

We must rise above the counting of the dead and the wounded
communitywise, and attend to the deadly wounds being inflicted on the
body politic as a whole. Even as of now it will take a long time for
these wounds to heal.  But if the body politic continues to receive
deeper and deeper wounds it may not survive them.

I am sure there are scholars and social workers who are fully aware of
the problems noted by me.  There are organizations, institutes and
individuals working for their solution in all sincerity.  We are here
to add our humble effort to these. The ultimate concern of the
Institute of Objective Studies is with the soul of the nation which is
being corrupted by satanic forces fed on misconceptions,
misapprehension, falsehood and complete oblivion of the real interests
of the Indian humanity.  We believe in the supreme power of truth and
the ultimate efficacy of moral values. We believe in change through
persuasion.  We want to fight the darkness of ignorance and prejudice
by spreading the light of factual information and universally accepted
norms of civilized behavior.

We are essentially scholars, not activists.  With your cooperation the
Institute proposes, in the first instance, to take up certain fact
-finding projects relation to Muslim presence in the press, vocational
institutions, and newly emerging enterprises.  The results of these
studies will be made available to the public so that , after due
scrutiny, they may provide a scientific basis for action.

I am very thankful for the opportunity to make some observations on a
subject, some aspects of which belong to the area of specialization of
some of the distinguished scholars and social workers in the audience.
I am sure they will have many useful points to add. So I leave the
rostrum to join you an d listen to the next speaker. Thank you all.
***
[concluded]
arun gupta
ag3L@andrew.cmu.edu
***