Muslims face discrimination in India: Shabana Azmi

Sunday, August 17 2008 12:48(IST): "Indian democracy is unfair to Muslims", said Bollywood actor and former MP Shabana Azmi. She said this in 'Devil's Advocate' show of CNN-IBN TV channel hosted by Karan Thapar. She said that though Muslims are safer in India than in other parts of the world because they have a stake and space in Indian democracy, Indian democracy is unfair to Muslims.

Shabana said, "I think there is not enough understanding of the fact that in a democracy how you treat the security of the minority must be a very important part for the success of a democracy. You can't only make token gestures and actually let them be in the state that they are as the Rajinder Sachar Committee report shows. So what happened is token gestures are made but real issues are never addressed."

Shabana Azmi said that despite India's secular nature Muslims are discriminated here. She said she couldn't buy a house in Mumbai because she was a Muslim. "I wanted to buy a flat in Bombay and it wasn't given to me because I was a Muslim and I read the same about Saif (Ali Khan). Now, I mean, if Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi cannot get a flat in Bombay because they are Muslims, then what are we talking about?"

Questioned about the Kashmir violence having a wider communal ramification elsewhere in the country at present, she said, "That's why I am so distressed over what is happening in Kashmir. For heaven's sake it should be brought to a stop and it should have been brought to a stop right when they started that nonsense."

But she agreed that it was the responsibility of the Muslim leadership to change the image of their community. "I don't think that the Muslim leadership has bothered to clear the air about what Islam actually is."

Source: OneIndia News

TATA against Muslims?

I fail to understand why TATASKY chose not to telecast QTV and Peace TV when both the channels are free-to-air and focuses on Islamic teachings and has NO political affiliation to any group. On the contrary Tata chose to telecast religious channels of Hindu, Sikh and Christian communities. Why so unfair treatment for Muslims?

Mr. Ratan Naval Tata, I would like to bring to your kind notice that the Tata Empire which stands all across India has equal contribution of the Muslim community which includes Mr. Ishaat Hussein (The Finance Director of Tata Sons).

Its high time you take note of this UNFAIR TREATMENT and add those channels, before you are branded as communal.

Madrasa syllabi free from communal hatred

New Delhi: CABE Committee on Regulatory Mechanism for Text Books (RMTB) set up by HRD ministry to examine whether the syllabi of religious madrasas and RSS-managed schools contain matters spreading communal hatred, has given a clean chit to madrasas and confirmed in its report that no objectionable matter is taught in madrasas and their books contain nothing which may promote communalism or religious hatred. The RMTB Committee is co-head by JNU’s Prof. Zoya Hasan.

She said that the committee’s report has been prepared after studding the primary and secondary class books of government and private madrasas and schools run by RSS in approximately 11 states of India. She said that it has been clearly found out that there is no truth whatsoever in the accusations that the books taught in madrasas promote religious hatred and communalism. On the contrary, books taught in educational institutions run by RSS definitely contain matters which promote communal feelings that may give rise to religious conflicts.

It may be stated here that the CABE met on 10 August last year for the first time in ten years. Concern was expressed that in the books prescribed in the NCERT syllabus and also in books taught in Saraswati Shiv Mandirs run by RSS, historical and other facts have been presented in distorted form and that false information is being fed to students. Minister Arjun Singh stated that the time has come that in addition to NCERT books, those taught in government and private religious schools and madrasas should be reviewed. The meeting decided to form seven committees, one of which is CABE Committee on RMTB whose chairpersons are Prof Zoya Hasan and Prof Gopal Guru. Members of this Committee are GP Deshpande, Teesta Setalwad, secretaries of UP, AP West Bengal, Kerala and Rajasthan School Education and NCERT director Prof Krishn Kumar.

Madrasas have been absolved of the blame of teaching communalism while RSS schools as well as schools of some states have been criticised.

Source: The Milli Gazette Online

Foreigner's search for justice in Gujarat

Dholakha (Gujarat): Zarina, an Australian who embraced Islam 13 years ago, is running from pillar to post in Dholakha, Gujarat in search of justice and to have the killers of her son who was killed in the Gujarat riots of 2002, booked. As ill luck would have it, her husband Mohammad Abdur Rahman was killed in Mumbai riots which had erupted in the wake of Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. Ten years later her 14-year-old son Imran too was killed. This double tragedy has caused so much pain and sorrow to her that at 35 she looks much older.

Born in Perth, Zarina came to India when she was only 16 years old along with her elder sister Dorothy who was a medical student in Bangalore. Thereafter she did a diploma in nursing and joined Saint Martha Hospital in Bangalore where she met her would-be husband, Abdur Rahman who was a patient there. Rahman was a resident of Mumbai. She married Rahman and gave birth to Imran who was a student of 9th class in Mumbai but later on she got him admitted in a madrasa at Dholakha. On the night of 28 February 2002 when the riots had already erupted Imran was attacked and seriously injured. The attackers wanted to burn him also but he was somehow saved and admitted to a hospital in a serious condition. After about one-and-a half months he succumbed to his injuries and died.

Zarina says that when her son was attacked she was in Mumbai. She left for Dholakha as soon as she came to know of the attack and could meet him only after six days. When he was on his death bed, he expressed his last wish that she should remain in India only and not return to Australia. In deference to her son’s last wish she says that she has decided to live in India, come what may. Therefore the question of her going back to Australia does not arise. Hence, instead of living with her parents in Australia, she prefers to live in this congested, Muslim-populated small town. She has no source of income and therefore financially she is in a very bad condition and survives on the assistance provided by some sympathetic people and the aid agencies.

She is so much wrecked by her miseries that she does not properly remember her past and has forgotten many things. Her neighbours say that she has lost her mental balance. She insists that she will not desert Islam. She says that she wants justice and wants to see those people being punished who killed her son and husband.

Police had closed the case of her son’s murder for want of proof but on Supreme Court’s intervention it was re-opened last November but there is no progress so far in spite of the fact that she had named at least two killers, as told by her son. One of them is Raju, son of one Narahari and the other is the son of a goldsmith. She says that she has provided some clues to the police and if one of the them is caught, other killers too will be caught. Inspector B.G. Solanki, however, does not think so because when her son was alive she failed to disclose the names of the killers to the police or to her own people. It is therefore difficult to believe what she says. Some local Muslims say that when the attack was made on the madrasa there were policemen and home guards around but they do not want to identify the culprits. Another argument against this is that the madrasa was attacked at night and hence it is difficult to identity the culprits in the crowd due to lack of proper light.

Zarina says that she is waiting for the day when the killers will be punished. She says that local people see her in a strange manner, probably because she is the only white skinned lady in this area who can speak only English. People do help her by giving her money and eatables. She says that destiny has been unkind to her but she is determined to fight for justice.

Source: The Milli Gazette Online

India waging second freedom struggle

Washington: "The country is facing a second wave of struggle for freedom-freedom from politics of hate," Harsh Mander stated while addressing an audience consisting of community leaders on 12 June 2005 here in Metropolitan Washington.

Harsh Mander, a senior IAS officer, had resigned from the powerful Indian Administrative Service as a protest against the failure of government authorities during and after Gujarat pogrom in 2002.

He has been actively engaged in rehabilitation of Gujarat pogrom victims and pursuing courts to reopen cases that were thrown out of judicial system citing various reasons under pressure from the Gujarat state government.

He said that Gujarat tragedy was unique in many ways and the reconciliation process has a long and difficult road ahead. He lamented that there had been no acknowledgment of the guilt. Instead, the administration has been saying that things were not so bad, and if anything happened to the minority community, they deserved it. Although several high-level officials and different NGOs and Human Rights organizations have documented the lapses in law enforcement during the carnage and even the involvement of authorities in the carnage, Narendra Modi's government is still in the state of denial of the carnage. Furthermore, his government is continuing to block the prosecution of culprits responsible for heinous crimes perpetrated against Muslims with impunity in Gujarat.

Discussing the importance of Modi as a BJP functionary, Mander informed the audience that the party utilized Modi's services as a star campaigner in recent election in Jharkhand. In that campaign Modi repeatedly told election rallies that he was proud of the manner in which he "defended Hindus in Gujarat". Modi is also reported to have boasted that to do what he did in Gujarat "needs a man with a 46 inch chest."

Mander also observed that unfortunately the communal virus has spread to Rajasthan and Orissa and has made inroads even in states like Kerala, where RSS took advantage of tension between two (Hindu and Muslim) fishing communities. He narrated an incidence when a member of Hindu community told him that in order to teach the Muslims a lesson, a Gujarat-like response would be welcomed in Kerala!

He observed that it is very unfortunate that in India people respond only when their own community faces injustice. If each community only reacts when its own interests are threatened, it will find no support from others in its own hour of need. The best way to fight communalism is to respond when other minorities or groups are being harassed or threatened. In this respect, he suggested that Indian Muslims should also be concerned when the rights of underprivileged communities and other minorities are being trampled. He believed that closer cooperation among the minorities would help all communities.

He noted an apparent relationship between the level of education and communalism; people with higher education appear to be more communal as compared to common masses, perhaps because these less-privileged people are more focused in earning their daily bread and are, therefore, less interested in politics of communal hatred.

Mander believed that the hope was alive and all was not bleak. Overall, the media, both print and audio-visual, and social workers performed an outstanding job in covering the massacres and in pressing the government to take stronger action. Also, the Supreme Court has been quite responsive.
While expressing reservation about his generation, Mander said that he has faith in the younger generation to uphold secularism in India. He stressed that secularism means equal justice to all, irrespective of religion, caste, or regional affiliations and the younger generation understands this better than folks of my generation.

Mander is on a five-weeks tour of US at the invitation of the Indian Muslim Relief and Charities (IMRC) with a mission of securing justice for victims of Gujarat massacre. The Association of Indian Muslims and local community members coordinated his trip to Washington.

By Zafar Iqbal
The Milli Gazette Online

Source: Milli Gazette Online