By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net,
Former bureaucrat Dr. Syed Zafar Mahmoood has a plan for the socio-economic upliftment of Indian Muslims. For him, the core problem in the marginalization of Muslims is that they are not part of the governance in India. He explains that policy formulation and implementation is done by the civil servants and Muslims are less than 2.5% in the administration.
During a detailed interview with TwoCircles.net, he said there are thousands of decision-trees within the government machinery where Muslims are not even present, and therefore not part of the equation. But just having Muslims in the bureaucracy who are too timid to raise the issues of Muslim backwardness, will make any difference? Having spent three decades in various government jobs, Zafar Mahmood is convinced that this is indeed the case. He argues that just the presence of a Muslim officer galvanizes the whole department to start being less discriminatory towards Muslims and their demands.
Given the poor representation of Muslims in the legislative bodies, Mahmood sees only opening in getting more Muslims in the bureaucracy. Through his organization Zakat Foundation of India (ZFI) Dr. Mahmood has launched an initiative to sponsor coaching for Muslims to appear in the examinations for highly prestigious Indian Administrative Services (IAS).
It is still very early to say how much success this new initiative will have but last year they had a big success with one of their recruit Shah Faesal topping the examination but the challenge remains as the Muslims representation in the annual intake of IAS officers never goes beyond 5%. Initiatives like ZFI and Hamdard Study Circle are making it easier for more Muslims to appear in the examination raising the odds that more Muslims may qualify in coming years.
But Dr. Mahmood is not putting all his eggs in one basket; he is also working tirelessly to devise ways of proper utilization of two other resources of the community- Waqf properties and Zakat funds.
Sachar Committee and also Joint-Parliamentary Committee on Waqf have identified the huge resources of waqfs that are going to waste. Dr. Mahmood has gone back and forth many times with Minister of Minorities Affairs Salman Khurshid arguing and developing a case for Indian Waqf Services, a cadre on the pattern of IAS, trained to manage and develop waqf properties.
Similarly, Zakat Foundation of India (ZFI), as the name suggests, was setup for the proper utilization and institutionalization of zakat system. His other plans include utilization of under-used masjid buildings that get used to maximum capacity only during Juma prayers. When talking about juma prayers, isn’t it a waste that millions attend the Juma prayers but did not understand a word of khutba and go back to their life uninspired and not learning anything new? Dr. Mahmood has started having workshop for Imams in addressing modern issues before Juma prayers becoming more relevant to the community at large.
Even if Dr. Zafar Mahmood succeeds in one of his many plans, it will bring immense benefit to the Muslims of India.
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Zakat Foundation of India website: http://www.zakatindia.org