Articles

Patna: It is not that only Muslims are critical of probes of serial bombings and terrorist attacks in the country and media coverage thereof; there is a big silent majority that includes Hindu intellectuals who have the similar views.

TwoCircles.net talked to some academicians and intellectuals in Delhi, Patna and Bangalore to get their views on the probes of serial blasts, spread of terrorism, faltering judicial system and vanishing journalistic ethics.

In an unprecedented move, last week thousands of Sunni and Shia Muslims gathered together in Lucknow to collectively offer prayers to mark the festival of Eid at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Two men were behind this monumental effort, both Lucknow-based Islamic clerics—the noted Sunni scholar Maulana Khalid Rashid Firanghi Mahali and the well-known Shia scholar and social activist, Maulana Kalbe Sadiq.

The deadly bomb blast which ripped apart bodies of the believers on September 29 has left a deep scar on the psyche of the town. Without losing any time, I was at Bhikku chowk, the epicenter of the blast, which resembled more like a battlefield than an ordinary chowk in a Muslim neighbourhood.

By Shahrukh Alam

"The expertise to read the signpost of the attack on secularism and democracy in India and monitor accordingly is the need of the hour," said, Ms. Asma Jahangir, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief at her concluding press conference after a three-week mission trip to find the religious intolerance in India early this year.

"The Fascism will come to India, in the form of communalism," warned, Jawaharlal Nehru, first Indian Prime Minister.

Just hours after a social activist is arrested in Delhi, a press release by All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (AIMMM) alerts rest of India about this arrest and puts pressure on the government to release him. Similarly, soon after Jamia Nagar encounter in which two Muslim youths were killed, a delegation of Muslim leaders under the leadership of Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan, president of Mushawarat visits the area and plans their next course of action.

The title of this book is, admittedly, somewhat misleading. What exactly is 'post-modern', a term that the book purports to address, but nowhere does it define what the author means by it? Can one talk of a 'post-modern' world when for vast numbers of people 'modernity' (whatever that may mean) itself seems far out of reach? That said, this immensely absorbing set of essays, the latest of Asghar Ali Engineer's writings on socially engaged understandings of Islam, is a must for scholars of Islam as well as for the general reader.

I am in Muslim dominated Dargah Shah Arzan area of Patna to see how people here do their Iftar arrangements. There is a tradition of collective Iftar usually arranged in mosques in the month of Ramadan. The mosque of this area is one of them.

I entered the palatial three-storey mosque which seemed to me no less than a palace. On its ground floor some people were offering Namaz and some were reciting the Holy Quran. I went upstairs and reached the first floor and then second floor.

New Delhi: "With due respect to secularism and with due respect to the honourable Chief Minister of Gujarat" said a person from Gujarat when he began giving information to TwoCircles.net about a communal violence there.

For a large number of Indians, anything that is American is the best. So our language, living, clothing, food habits all are changing to suit our new belief. This trend has now even reached journalism. This American style of journalism was always present but now it is the loudest voice out there. American style journalism is our new benchmark, it is the best and it is the lead.

The terrorists struck again and this time in Delhi at the time and place of their choosing on 13th September in the evening when maximum number of people go out shopping. As usual before the investigations began police officer concluded it is SIMI pattern and hence SIMI is involved. And not only that they also knew the Mumbai based Tauqir the tech-savy bomber who is the mastermind and is at large is behind it.

As in the case of many previous deadly blasts across India over the past decade or so, there is much speculation about the real masterminds behind the recent blasts in New Delhi. Depending essentially on who you are—which these days has largely come to mean for many people which religious community one identifies with—the monsters behind the carnage could possibly be disgruntled Muslims or Islamist terrorists (for many Hindus) or Hindutva militants (according to many Muslims).

With silent debates on Islamic Banking in India among Indian Muslims, some of our financial sector players and political leaders, time has come that besides considering the religious, social, political and diplomatic dimensions, we should understand the economics of Islamic banking for Indian economy.

Playing cricket in South Asia is more than a sport. It is mix of politics both at home and across the border. So much so that cricket diplomacy is employed when real diplomacy seems to fail. Being a student of international relations, I am always careful about cricket though not about playing. One has to learn when cricket is sport and when it is diplomacy.

The preeminence acquired by the Jews in the West over a mere 50 years holds many lessons for large minority populations that may find themselves in adverse political circumstances, of course because of the vagaries of recent history; who isn't a victim of it? Going beyond mere envy, Muslims everywhere need to ponder how the Jews acquired their political and economic dominance in just a few decades. It was certainly not through any use of quotas and reservations in jobs or college admissions, or seats in legislatures.

I was invited last week to Indonesia for a series of lectures by Asia Calling International Radio to speak on Islam, Democracy and Nation state. These days Indonesian intellectuals are rocked with questions we were faced with in early fifties in India. Also, all over Islamic world the question is being asked is Islam compatible with democracy and nation state? In Indonesia too, a largest Islamic country in the world the radical Islamists have raised this debate. The progressive Islamic thinkers there, are therefore, seized with these questions.

For several months now, almost no week passes without the media reporting about 'dreaded Muslim fundamentalists' being picked up by the police and allegedly confessing to being involved in bomb blasts or plots to engineer violence across India. It is not my argument that all of these reports are cooked-up and dished-out propaganda.

The role of police in democratic society is very different from that of police in colonial society. However, it is 61 years now that India became independent and there is no change in the role of police a wee bit. Today our police have become even more colonial in its attitude. The British colonial rulers had enacted the police an act in 1861 to use the police for suppression of people's movement and to terrorize colonized people. Our police too is terrorizing innocent people fighting for their rights.

In the aftermath of the Amarnath shrine board land transfer and then reversal of the same, the matters in the state are going from bad to worse. One was witnessing a gradual decline in acts of terror and increase in the democratic space, democratic patterns, despite the heavy presence of the army in the state. With the Shrine board issue being used by the separatist elements and communal elements, the things seem to be heading in the direction which will have far reaching adverse impact on the politics of the region.

The media and and law inforcement agencies' onslaught with assumptions and deliberate repetitions of Muslim names after each terror attack in India made a penetration into common hearts and it ultimately implies that terrorism is a Muslim specialty in the country.

The crisis in Jammu and Kashmir are compounding with each passing day. The two regions of the state are up against each other over a stretch of land. The administration is undecided on how to deal with the present turmoil. Going by the present ground realities, there seems no light at the end of the tunnel.

Here are some remedial measures through which the crisis in Jammu and Kashmir could be mitigated.

First there was agitation in Kashmir Valley against the transfer of the land to Sri Amarnath Shrine Board which forced the Government to take back the land allotted to The Board and now for more than a month Jammu is burning demanding the land back for the Sri Amaranth Shrine Board. What has sustained the agitation so long in Jammu? Who provoked it and for what? Is the peace of land a real issue? These are important questions which must be answered satisfactorily.

Shams Alam Khan is doing M. Phil in Economics from Patna University. Resident of Brauli block in Gopalganj district in Bihar, Khan from a poor family is staying at the Maulana Abul Hasan Ali Nadvi Hostel in Patna College campus in the state capital.

It is Gali No. 9 that starts along the Jama Masjid of Zakir Nagar, a thickly populated locality in Delhi’s one of the biggest Muslim ghettoes, Jamia Nagar. I entered the gali first time since I entered the national capital three years ago. I had got the reaction of Muslim leaders to the Delhi High Court tribunal order acquitting Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) of all terrorism charges and quashing the ban it had been carrying for eight years.

The news of Abhinav Bindra bagging a gold medal in the shooting event at the Beijing Olympics sounds music to the ears. So does the news from Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) that Chandrayan the Indian mission to the moon is all set to take off this year. Definitely every Indian feels proud, especially when it comes at a time when our young and vibrant nation has turned 61 and celebrating its Independence Day on Friday, August 15, 2008.

It is better to see Dr. C. Rangarajan resigning as chief of Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC). He might be eying a bright career as consultant for new growing business of financial inclusion. This way he might have escaped from facing the utter failure of UPA government on economic front.

What is relation between religion and conflict? Is conflict inevitable where religion has greater role in public life? According to the Global Peace Index countries where religion had greater role in public life were at the bottom of the index, which means they were less peaceful. This index will lead us to the conclusion that religion and conflict go together and that religion has negative role to play. It must make all those who advocate role of religion in public life sit and think.

Md. Nadeem, vice president of Minority Cell of Maharashtra State Congress Party, was with social activist Teesta Setalvad when she visited the violence-hit area of Digras, a taluka of Yavatmal district, on 31st July and 1st August. They listened to victims. Nadeem gives an account of what happened on 18th July in Digras after desecration of Holy Quran. Talking to Mumtaz Alam Falahi on phone from Yavatmal he says police was party to the miscreants who attacked on Muslim areas and ransacked their homes and shops.

Dr. Waseem-ur-Rehman is the first Madrasa product who has achieved the historic success in UPSC exams. His accounts are really inspiring for anyone who is willing to opt for this coveted career. Ummid.com brings the complete audio of his speech delivered at Dr. Manzoor Hasan Ayyubi hall in Malegaon.

Two and half months after Jaipur bombings which left 60 people dead, Bangalore and Ahmedabad were ripped through by serial blasts on 25th and 26th July respectively – 25 explosions in total within 24 hours – and 50 people were dead and more than 150 wounded. Jaipur is unsolved till date and, with past investigations into terror attacks in mind, it can be said that Bangalore and Ahmedabad will remain unsolved, too. This is what has kept the cycle of terror moving.

In order to know what the common Muslim thinks of the current ruling dispensation in New Delhi and Patna, the United Progressive Alliance and the National Democratic Alliance governments respectively,TwoCircles.net talked to aam admi and tried to make the informal survey as much representative as possible.