By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
Suhail K K is the newly elected president of India’s largest Muslim youth group Students Islamic Organization of India. In an interview with Mumtaz Alam Falahi of TwoCircles.net he talks about targeting of innocent Muslim youths, state terrorism, difference between SIO and banned SIMI, and ragging and campus politics.
What is the top priority of Students Islamic Organization of India (SIO) today?
Given the rise in communal tension between Hindus and Muslims, and communal polarization, we have decided to address this issue by creating maximum avenues of joining hands together. We are planning to hold joint programs of Hindus and Muslims to work for creative work for the society.
It is said SIO did not strongly oppose the arresting of Muslim youths and students in terror cases, most of them falsely.
It is totally wrong to say SIO did nothing or did very less. It was only SIO that raised voice in huge numbers against the picking of youths. But I firmly believe that this is not a communal issue that only Muslims should unite and work for it. We have been working that whole of the society including the social secular groups, both at local and national level, get united and work jointly to address the victimization of innocents who have got nothing to do with terrorism. Victimization of innocents is against the society, not against a particular community. We should oppose it as a state terrorism wherein a particular community is being targeted on a preconceived notion.
How is SIO different from banned SIMI?
SIO is entirely different from SIMI which has been banned. The ideology and work culture of the two organizations are totally different. I won’t like to say about SIMI. As for SIO, its work style is accommodative for the whole sections of the society. We have included people from different religious communities also in our organization. We have presented and propagated Islam as something which is totally against communalism and narrow mindedness.
Even a quarter century after its establishment, SIO could not become a popular organization. Still masses of the Muslim community don’t know much about it. Why?
It’s not true. SIO is working in the length and breadth of the whole of India. We have units in the entire country from Delhi to Kerala and from Gujarat to Assam. This is the only student organization working throughout India. As for popularity, SIO has started to be felt by authorities, governments and student community. In southern states, SIO has become part of the society. For peculiar social structure in northern India, we could not penetrate deeper.
Your policies and programs are not limited to Islamic ideology as you are working for common social problems affecting student and youth community irrespective of religion. So why don’t you remove the word ‘Islamic’ from the name of your organization and make it a secular one so that people from other religious communities can also join it?
The word ‘Islamic’ has nothing to do with communalism. We believe Islam is related with society not with a community. Scriptures of Islam talk about the religion, Quran and Prophet not as entities of a community but for whole mankind. When we define Islam as something creative for the society then the perception of being communal gets changed. SIO is not a secular organization. We are against the notion of secularism as far as it says religion is part of private life. We believe religion is part of our family life, social life and student and political life also.
What is SIO going to do to check violence and ragging in campus? The trend is on rise. Recently a medical student was ragged to death in Himachal Pradesh.
We have opposed violence and ragging in campus since the beginning. Though we are not against campus politics as it is breeding ground for democracy but we are against political violence also. We have opposed it. In the wake of Himachal Pradesh incident, we are planning a massive program in Chandigarh to speak against the campus violence. Stringent laws are there to curb violence and ragging in campus but the main problem is their implementations. We have urged the government to implement the laws strictly.
Do you have any plan to check porn sites which are spoiling the morality of youths and students?
From year 2000, SIO has launched massive campaigns against these sites. We have fixed September 1 as E-ethics Day to speak against and make awareness of digital crimes. From this year we are going to strengthen our campaign by joining other groups also. We are trying to build a backbone filtering system for India as whole. This will help check anti-moral activities in cyber world as well as digital world including TV channels.
You are going to organize people’s tribunals across the country. What is the purpose of tribunals?
These tribunals are to be held in the context of current scenario in the country – catching and targeting of innocents. The things being done by government agencies are being concealed. The media is not exposing tools of state terrorism, rather they are working as organs of the government. In that context, people’s tribunal is a big tool to create massive awareness in the society. We launched the program by conducting such a tribunal in Azamgarh where lots of innocents have been caught and targeted. We will be holding such tribunals in other parts of the country.
As president of India’s largest Muslim youth organization, what is your message to the Muslim youth community across the country?
To the Muslim community I shall say: Never be alienated from the society; Be part of the society; Work for the construction of the society. We need to come into the mainstream of the society. My advice to the whole student community is: Never work as the tails; Never surrender your thoughts to any of the groups or powers; Think yourself, and Work hard so that we create a better society.