By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad: US based Indian Muslim Relief and Charities (IMRC) is one of the few organizations influencing and channelizing the resources of Muslims of Indian origin living in America to give back to their community here in India. Maintaining a constructive FDI of its kind, IMRC has its imprint on almost every field of charity to change the lives of Indian Muslims for better.
The man behind the idea of ‘giving back to the community’, Manzoor Ghori was recently in India to monitor the flood relief work of in Kashmir. Chairperson since its inception, Mr Ghori nurtured IMRC to be an effective institute in itself. Currently its executive director he still remembers the events in vivid details which led to the formation of IMRC.
Originally born and brought up in Hyderabad, he went to USA as a student in 1968 after graduating from Osmania University in Sciences. In US he pursued another bachelor degree in medical technology and chemistry. He later completed his masters in management and supervision and then proceeded to work for different hospitals. Mr Ghori worked for over 30 years as a clinical scientist at different levels.
Since his early student days in America, Mr. Ghori was active in Muslim Students Association of US & Canada. During that time, in 1979 there were anti-Muslim riots in Jamshedpur, and MSA received a request from a local person asking for help.
“We never met, but I still remember, his name was Shams ul Huda,” Mr. Ghori told TCN, while narrating his his first “fling with activism”.
“Shams wrote a small letter saying, ‘We have 50-60 orphans, we have been taking care of them, but cannot any more, please help us.’ MSA president gave that assignment to me and we tried to mobilize the help, which was my first aid operation.”
The moment that changed his life though came in 1983 when a massacre of Muslims in Nellie in Assam, where he got first exposure to the field.
He came back from the US and volunteered in the camps to help the victims. Listening to the tales of sufferings and horror, he got first-hand information of what was happening. Those nights and days at the camps witnessing the suffering changed his life, he says.
After returning back to the US, he along with some of his friends who shared his feelings led the formation of Indian Muslim Relief and Charities. IMRC today runs engineering, management and media institutes in Uttar Pradesh, a school at the suburb of Hyderabad, are involved in relief work from Assam to Kashmir, besides working in other rural development programmes and serving iftar and Qurbani meat to poor and needy.
Manzoor Ghori, Executive Director of IMRC
15 years ago Mr. Ghori quit his job and started to work for IMRC on full time. Looking back today, he still feels that it was a difficult decision to take. “Any work of this kind requires family support,” he said. By the time he took this decision, three of his children, out of four, had settled and his wife was working as a clinical scientist. Because of the financial stability and family support, particularly from his wife, he says, he went ahead and took the charge of IMRC to expand it to new levels.
“I gave up my profession at the height of my career when I was making most of the money as a senior scientist,” Mr. Ghori said, but added that when he looks back today he has no regrets, rather he is satisfied that he is doing something fruitful.
“This was something I wanted to do, this cannot be imposed. For some people satisfaction comes from getting a post or making lot of money, but self-satisfaction I think is when you are doing what you wanted to do.”
Of course there are many people who have economic stability and hence seek voluntary retirement to spend time with family or simply to surrender to Almighty and bow down in mosque to impress the lord. Mr Ghori though feels that he is serving God through his work. “For me service to the humanity is service to God. If we want our salvation, then helping the needy is the way. For me it’s like an ‘Ibadat’ (worship).”
He gave reference to Prophet’s Hadith, “Love for your brother what you love for yourself,” adding, this he said should be every Muslim’s guiding line in life.
Day to day challenges in running the operation of IMRC, spread across India, are many but for Mr. Ghori satisfaction of his work makes him going. “Once you go on the ground and made a commitment to change the conditions of the people who are in desperate need (and) if you are a person who cares, then that drives you to work hard.”
He feels that Muslims should do introspection if they really want to improve the conditions of their lot.
“When you see the condition of Muslims, it’s pathetic,” he says, while apologizing for using such harsh word. But that seems to have aptly communicated his frustration with the condition of the community. He feels that putting all blame on government’s shoulders is doing no good either, “In Sachar committee report, Muslim community’s condition is well documented; (no doubt) government is partly responsible for it, but in a democracy minorities should also struggle, work hard, fight for their rights within the constitutional frame work.”
According to Mr Ghori, minorities in India have great opportunity to get what their rightful by working in constitutional frame work. “India’s constitution is one of the world’s best constitutions; I even think it’s better than the United States’ constitution. Which constitution in the world will give right to food, right to education, but sadly that seems all on the paper, we have to implement it on the ground and for that we have to work hard within its frame work.”
Short term achievements and satisfactions appear irrelevant to him at this juncture, as he explains, “What we do today, the results of it we might not get immediately, like we establish hospitals or universities, it takes lot of time for them to be settled.”
But there will be moments which encourage working harder and thinking beyond results, “I was in Kashmir for flood relief work. In the night below-zero degree temperature you spot someone without any warm cloth, you hand them one, the smile they give, those unspoken words, these give you immense satisfaction for the work you are doing.”
Link: https://www.imrcusa.org/
(Disclaimer: TCN is the Media partner of IMRC.)