Author: Arvind Lavakare
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: June 20, 2000
Aha, a self-confessed
agent of Pakistan's ISI is soon to set up a new Muslim political party
-- in India! The imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, Syed Abdullah Bukhari, made
that historic announcement in Calcutta on June 12.
Clearly, the maulana
in dark glasses has learnt so much from his past deals and dealings with
our umpteen "secular" leaders that he is now confident of breaking out
on his own rather than being content with merely issuing fatwas to his
minion millions every election time.
Clearly, too, it has
dawned on the maulana that the "secular" parties of all shades and names
have taken his Muslim minions for a pillion ride all these long years.
The fear of the "secularists"
to even talk of the uniform civil code, leave alone enforce that directive
principle of state policy in our Constitution, the wide range of minority
rights under the Constitution (Articles 14 to 17, 23, and 25 to 30), the
National Minorities Commission, a continuing annual Haj pilgrimage subsidy
(about Rs 1,200 million currently), the law overruling the Shah Bano judgment
of the Supreme Court, permitting namaaz on public roads -- all this and
more has clearly not been adequate appeasement for Bukhari.
Hear, hear, then, the
maulana's litany of lament. "Muslims have got nothing in this country
since Independence," he mourns. "All political parties," he says,
"have ignored us except during election time, deceived us." He complains
that "Muslims have been kicked around like footballs".
How a widespread ghetto
mentality created such footballs in the first place doesn't concern the
maulana. All he wants is that the football must now be converted
into that which will in turn kick others -- so goes Bukhari's logic.
Ergo, the new political party of the Muslims with the primary objective
of ensuring "adequate representation of the minority community in Parliament".
Now what is "adequate"?
Going by the present estimated proportion of Muslim population in India's
total, some 82 seats is what would be the maulana's share of the Lok Sabha
strength of 543 members. Would that number be "adequate" for Bukhari?
Or would his concept of "adequate" be as confidential and variable as the
NDA government's notion of "minimum" nuclear deterrent?
Be that as it may, the
entry of Bukhari's Muslim party into electoral politics could spell a lot
of fun and games for the BJP as well as a lot of angst and agony for all
other parties.
Imagine how Bukhari's
outfit would trump the strong suit of the Samajwadi Party's "Maulana" Yadav
who had wanted our nation to gift Rs 20 billion to Pakistan not long ago.
Imagine what it would do to Sonia's or Pawar's Congress, to the Communists
of all hues and fronts, to the variegated acronyms of the DMK, TDP, PMK,
AIADMK. All these parties would suddenly find their traditional election
manifestoes stark naked without the "secular" dress. Millions of
voters would be confused by this vulnerable "no-trump" bid. Speeches
at election rallies would be so tricky to make that they could provide
considerable comic copy.
And what would be the
election plank of Bukhari's party itself? Without really letting one's
imagination take over, the following may well be a part of his manifesto
promises:
1.One madarsa (religious
school) in every Indian hamlet;
2.One dozen mosques in
every tehsil (administrative area);
3.25 per cent reservation
of all government jobs, including IAS, for Muslim males;
4.Interest-free loans
from nationalised banks to male Muslim artisans of all kinds, to co-operatives
and industrial units run by Muslim males;
5.Totally free education
till graduation for all Muslim males;
6.Reserved quotas and
preferential purchase price for all Muslim suppliers seeking government
contracts;
7.Fundamental right to
subsidised Haj pilgrimage, and
8.Fundamental right to
support Islam's basic tenet of jehad.
Of the above eight planks,
the one that would be the easiest to get the nod from any government in
Delhi would be the demand for a madarsa per hamlet. After all, spread
of education at the village level is the loudest and most ubiquitous cry
in the land, and the madarsa is a nursery of education, isn't it? So why
not concede that demand, especially since the whole Islamic world would
be willing to finance it through the FDI route? Why not, even if it is
madarsa education?
And what, pray, is madarsa
education?
Many non-Muslims have
some idea of it, but a certain Bill Redekar recently gave a graphic account
of one such school he visited on the outskirts of Peshawar city (Pakistan)
where he observed 60 young boys seated on the floor learning the Koran.
Below is a portion of Redekar's account:
'Every one of the boys
bobs his head up and down as he recites a verse and then another verse
and another... They are memorizing the entire Koran though they do
not yet know its meaning... ("That will come later," Redekar was
told, "when they are taught to use the Koran as their life guide.")
'It's still morning and
we're told that the group will spend three hours at this -- without a break.
They will log another three hours in the afternoon. Six hours of
rote memorisation and no one is complaining...
'After a long discussion...about
the merits of the Koran, I ask the students how many want to be engineers
or doctors when they finish school. Two hands are raised.
' "How many of you want
to fight a jehad [holy war] when you grow up?" Every hand shoots into the
air. And most of them are kids under the age of 10.'
What if the madarsa is
primitive to the eye and mind of the modern? The system can always be "modernised",
hope the dreaming idealists. Why, the Government of India is indeed
putting hard cash into "modernising" madarsa education. If you don't
believe it, read on.
In the Government of
India's published document called "Expenditure Budget, 1998-99, Volume
2", pages 108-136 are devoted to the Budget allocations on the various
departments in the human resources development ministry and to brief notes
on each of the various "Demands for Grants." On page 119 therein, there
is the sentence "Under the scheme of Modernisation of Madarsa on voluntary
basis, 100 per cent financial assistance is provided to State Governments/Union
Territories by the Centre as a Central scheme." Normally, the budget allocation
figure against every such scheme is shown. But in regard to this
madarsa modernisation, the reader is not given the actual rupee provision
made for it.
That deficiency was made
good in the expenditure budget documents of 1999-2000 and 2000-2001.
They showed that the item, "Modernisation of Madarsa", was allocated a
total of Rs 100 million in 1999-2000 and Rs 120 million in 2000-2001.
Apart from the absence
of the actual budget provision not being given in the 1998-99 document,
there are two other strange aspects to the darned demand. One is
that the lay reader of the annual budget documents is not given even a
teeny summary of the contents/progress of what is truly a unique scheme
insofar as its nomenclature represents a contradiction in terms -- modernising
primitive rigidity. Further, the scheme is treated as a "secondary
education" scheme. Now how, in the name of Allah, can the primary
seeds sown for growing rigidity ever be altered at the secondary stage?
What Islamic miracle of socio-educational engineering is our government
seeking to invoke?
The queerest and most
ironical part of it all is that the madarsa institution is being aided
by the government led by the BJP --- the very entity that Bukhari dubs
"fundamentalist". Poor chap, like countless in our "secular" lot,
he is ignorant that, in the nineties, scholars of Chicago University concluded
that the word "fundamentalism" was more accurately attributable to Jews,
Christians, Muslims -- all who, unlike the Hindus, show unwavering loyalty
to the only book, the only prophet and the belief that the scripture is
infallible. (Letter of D Narasimha, Hyderabad, published in the newspaper
The Telegraph, Calcutta, dated May 15, 2000).
And what's the definition
of "minority community" for whom Bukhari wants "adequate representation
in Parliament"? He and his "secular" lot would be shocked to learn that
"The Constitution (of India) uses the term 'minority' without defining
it." (Indian Constitutional Law of M P Jain, published by Wadhwa and Co,
Fourth Edition, 1994, page 649). Going by the text of Article 30(1),
a "minority" may either be linguistic or religious; it does not have to
be both, writes Jain.
More interestingly, the
Supreme Court opined in "The Kerala Education Bill" case (All India Reporter
journal, 1958 SC, 956) that while it was easy to see that minority meant
a community which was less than 50 per cent, the important question was
50 per cent of what -- the entire population of India or of a state or
a part thereof? Logically therefore, Hindus must be considered a "minority
community" in Kerala's Mallapuram district as well as in the Kashmir Valley.
Speaking of Kashmir,
you can bet Bukhari's last skullcap that he and his countless "secularists"
are ignorant of the fact that "no provisions regarding minorities apply
to the (Jammu and Kashmir) state". (M P Jain, ibid, page 437).
Tailpiece: One spoilsport
of Bukhari's party will be the Election Commission which, by law, gives
recognition only to such a political party as has a secular constitution.
But then Bukhari is as crafty a cleric as they come: He will either work
out another of his deals with influential friends or demand that Muslims,
Christians and other "minorities" be exempted from the ambit of that law.
And, Inshallah, some shyster of his may well unearth a Constitutional loophole
to get that demand past the Supreme Court.
