By T. M. Zackriah Badsha
Readers may recall that the Peace Exhibition was forced to move out of Chennai to Injambakkam, a suburb of Chennai, thanks to the efforts of the mainstream Sunni and Shia Muslims. The exhibition is deceptively entitled “Peace” when it really means “Peace on our terms.”
I usually visit this event to buy books. On Friday, Jan 15, 2010 I was there and unusually, I found the exhibition to crowded, but only in the stalls. The lecture hall itself was only partially occupied. Even while browsing through the books at about 8.30 pm, I could hear the shrill voice a speaker who was speaking in Tamil lamenting over the fact that the present rulers of the country and our state of Tamil Nadu are not aware of the Islamic system of governance. He was absolutely convinced that all problems of our country will be solved once Islamic principles are introduced. Of course by that he meant his own ideology.
This kind of vituperative speech, openly advocating the principles of one particular ideology is against the ethos of secularism enshrined in our constitution. No one should be allowed to preach exclusiveness in a multi-religious and multi-cultural society. Not only non-Muslims but a large number of Muslims may be offended at the needlessly aggressive tone adopted by many speakers.
Another area of concern is the mushrooming of the so-called “Islamic” schools everywhere. These schools actually make young students unfit to live as citizens of the world in the twenty first century. As a person who spent nearly forty years of his life in the Collegiate Education Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu, I would like to caution the parents against falling into this trap and spending large sums of money only to produce young people with narrow minds who have no love or affection for people professing other faiths or ideologies. Not only Muslims but all other backward communities should make full use of the Government and Aided schools and colleges where students will get better education at a fraction of the cost involved in schools based on exclusive ideologies.
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The author is a social activist and former Joint Director of Collegiate Education, Government of Tamil Nadu. He is based in Chennai.