Mr Kawaja lives in Washington DC where he works as an engineering manager in the Space Science program of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Mr Kawaja is originally from Kanpur, India. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Brooklyn Polutechnic Institute, New York.
Mr Kawaja is one of the founders and current President of Association of Indian Muslims of America, Washington DC. He is a well known activist in the Indian- Muslim, American- Muslim and Indian-American communities in US. He is a trustee and past President of the Muslim Community Center, one of the largest Islamic Centers in metro Washington DC.
Mr Kawaja frequently writes articles in Indian, Muslim and American newspapers on diverse issues of the community. He also often speaks as a panelist in seminars and conferences.
By Kaleem Kawaja
There is no end in sight to the plight of the Urdu speaking Muslims of the Indian subcontinent who are spread over Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Nearly sixty years after the partition of India their social, economic and political situation in all three countries continues to be precarious. The Muslims of erstwhile India have been tragically trifurcated into almost three equal parts.
In 1947 and since then Muslims of all ethnic shades in India have continued to pay a heavy price for the creation of Pakistan. Today in India while Muslims of other ethnic origin have started making a courageous and difficult effort to carve out a role for themselves in the Indian context and to become a part of the Indian mainstream, a segment of the Urduwala Muslims continue to emphasize the symbolic elements that have lost their relevance, and continue to be emotionally attached to the West Asian Muslim countries. This seriously draws their energies away from their real problems lack of security, backwardness in education and socio-economic arenas.
In Bangladesh where most Urduwala Muslims migrated only as a second choice due to their perception of themselves as being of West Asian origin, they alienated themselves from the Bengali Muslims. They remained aloof from the Bengali Muslims. When Pakistan split up in 1971, they sauffered immeasurably, since Bengali Muslims perceived them as colonists, not fellow countrymen.
At the same time they started having problems in West Pakistan also. Today in Pakistan the Urduwala Muslims including the generation that was born in Pakistan itself, are sharply alienated from fellow Sindhis, Punjabis, Pathans and Balochs. Despite some genuine grievances their forming a separate political party - Muttahida Qaumi Mahaz, their demand for the recognition of Muhajirs as a separate nationality, demands for a separate province, and their unending conflagration with other Pakistanis is mind boggling. They seem disillusioned in the Wesrt Asian heaven where their parents and grandparents led them in search of tranquility.
Now in the twentyfirst century is there hope that the dilema of the Urduwala Muslims will end ? If the Eastern European nations can reject Communism after seventy years, because they did not see any duture in it, is it too much to ask the Urduwala Muslims to re-examine their fixation with West Asia which inhibits their assimilation in an East Asian ocean, which is their real origin and where they are destined to remain for ever? After all this fixation has already caused immense harm to them. Also an overwhelming majority of the Muslim Ummah lives in the East.
Is it not worthwhile for the Urduwala Muslims to evaluate why despite being a talented people they are in hot water everywhere? Is it their myopic social and cultural orientation or are they chasing a set of impractical values? What is the use being imitation West Asians? Why not be what they really are and become a part of the mainstream where they live? Surely that does not conflict with their being a part of the universal Muslim ummah.
By Kaleem Kawaja
In the last twenty-five years the Muslim world has witnessed a very significant increase in the appeal of Islamism among their people. The overthrow of monarchy and the emergence of the masses-based leadership of the ayatollahs in Iran; the demand for incorporating Sharia as the law of the land; the appeal to incorporate Nizam-e-mustafa in Muslim countries; the vehement opposition to Western military attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan among Muslims all over the world; the global Muslim backing to Iran in its effort to develop nuclear technology, indicates that this trend is proving to be a viable rallying point for mobilizing the Muslim masses.
Muslims the world over do not form a homogenous community. Apart from differences in languages and cultures the class divisions and economic inequalities are wide and sharp. Islam is not an autonomous and independent category but only one of the many factors which shape the attitudes of Muslims wherever they may be.
To understand the reasons for the resurgence of Islam as a political system in recent years one should review the background of the Muslim societies in the preceding decades, which may be surmised as follows.
Substantial economic gain in the middle-eastern countries due to increased oil revenues did not result in reducing socio-economic inequalities in Muslim societies. The dispossessed and alienated classes in the Muslim societies who are in majority have chosen Islam as a vehicle to express their discontent. They feel that Western liberalism is opposed to the Islamic way of life. The assessment of a vocal majority in the Muslim world has resulted in the condemnation of past ideologies. The failure of socialism, Marxism, liberalism, Western capitalism in military, economic, political and social fields encouraged the search for a different ideological framework for political movements. The people of West Asia are returning to the all embracing ideology of Islam which once permeated all aspects of their lives and struggles.
The credibility of the Muslim champions of Western liberalism who criticize the Islamic ideology has plummeted in the Muslim world. In the absence of other channels mosques have become viable means of expression of the popular resentment of the masses against Western imposition of their culture in Muslim societies.
It is interesting to note that the content of Islamism differs from country to country. In Iran it was the basis for the struggle of the masses against monarchy. In Afghanistan it was first the basis for nationalism against the Soviet occupation and later a basis for restoring law and order. In Pakistan it was first a tool for legitimizing the rule of the army junta and later a movement to restore democracy. In Egypt it is an effort to promote democracy against an authoritarian government. In Saudi Arabia it is a plea for keeping the royal family in power. In Morocco and Tunisia it means the condemnation of modernism. In Turkey the conservative party leaders want to use Islam for partisan politics. In Sudan it is the basis for keeping the country from breaking apart under the strain of tribal rivalries.
The diverse application of Islamism brings up the need to understand the ideology of this movement. Based on the observations of various social scientists the following could be construed as the elements of Islamism.
Islam is a comprehensive way of life and is integral to politics, state, law and society.Muslim societies have failed in recent times because they departed from the understanding of Islam and followed Western secular and materialistic values. Islamic renewal calls for an Islamic political and social revolution that draws its inspiration from Quran and prophet Mohammad who led the first Islamic movement. To establish Allah’s rule a Western inspired civil law must be replaced by the Islamic law which is the blueprint of a Muslim society. While the Westernization of Muslim societies is decried, modernization is not. Science and education are accepted but they are to be subordinate to Islam in order guard against the infiltration of Western social values. Establishing an Islamic system of government is not simply an alternative but an imperative.
That brings us to the inevitable question of the future of Islamism as a movement in Muslim societies. It is a grim reminder of the historical fact that Muslims are no longer in-charge of their own destiny. It is the realization that efforts to modernize and protect society’s cohesion requires a serious re-examination of the Islamic heritage as a potential mode of action.
The term Islamism suggests not a program but a style and above all a mindset. The preoccupation of the critics of the Islamic movement with programs and solutions that leave the movement open to accusation of naiveté is misplaced. Even the most benighted rulers whether Muslim or not will usually respond to pragmatic concerns. Whatever one might think of the Islamic government of Iran, the heritage of Ali, Hasan, Husain, the Sharia and the Shia-Sunni theological conflict, it remains true that the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran are managing a democratic state.
The fact that the rulers of Iran are animated by Islamic convictions does not seem to be leading to the downfall of the regime in a situation where Western powers are openly targeting Iran with a well-planned hostile action from the outside and well orchestrated internal subversion.
The fear of those who see in Islam’s resurgence some great revolt against modernity is mistaken. Whether Muslims respond to the Islamic message on the material level of class and social interest groups, or the ideal level of spirit and mind, nothing suggests that the crisis of identity which inspires the message is near an end. For this reason it is most useful to view the Islamic revival movement not as a narrow and specific programmatic entity with discrete beginning and ending points, but as a broad endeavor which Muslims are pursuing as a necessary aspect of contending with the bad situation of Muslims in the contemporary world.
There is no predictable conclusion to the movement. Whether it will bring joy to its adherents or it is another attempt to regain equal footing with the Western system is hard to say. What we are more likely to see is the emergence of a heterogeneous multiplicity of social character within the world of Islam.
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The writer is a community activist in Washington DC. He can be reached at: kaleemkawaja@hotmail.com
By Kaleem Kawaja
In the last one year a very unlikely political development has occurred in India. That is the rapidly developing political warmth of CPI, CPI (M) and other Communists towards the mainstream Muslim community in various parts in India including some Muslim religious organizations. In this instance the Muslims are not the esoteric leftist Muslims from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Aligarh Muslim University, Kerala and West Bengal. The Muslims are of the practicing, mosque-going variety. For long due to their opposition to the practice of religion and religious issues per se, Communist politicians shied away from giving political support to India's backward and impoverished Muslim community.
But when CPI, CPI (M) won 50 elected seats in Lok Sabha, and became the mainstay of the UPA Government in New Delhi, and with elected governments in the two forward looking states of West Bengal and Kerala, they began to realize the virtue of real politic and coalition. They realized that excessive adherence to the anti-religion Marxist ideology was hurting their political success and their role in the India's civic life.
When about a year ago under extreme US pressure the Indian government voted against its long time close ally Iran in International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Muslims of India reacted in revulsion, a new sun dawned on the India's political horizon. Communists who have for long opposed the intervention and pressure from imperialist US in India's internal affairs, found the time right to tap this new political support. Thus during the visit of President Bush to India, mainstream Communist parties and mainstream Muslim organizations including religiously oriented organizations like Jamiat ul Ulema joined hands to organize massive public protests in India's major cities. The Communist support to these public rallies was crucial in sending a strong message to the US necon policymakers who are tying to impose their hegemony all over the globe.
Next came the Sachar Committee recommendations to the Indian government in December 2006 to institute special affirmative action programs to uplift the backward Muslim community in India. Again CPI, CPI (M) and other Leftist political parties are supporting the recommendations of the Sachar Committee. This too is a big shift in the attitude of the Leftists who previously opposed any affirmative action for Muslims, despite the community's impoverishment.
In recent months the Communist government in West Bengal has faced much organized protest against its efforts to establish a Special Economic Zone in Nandigram. Suddenly the right wing forces represented by BJP and Trina Mool Congress an ally of BJP for several years, saw an opportunity to give a bloody nose to the Leftists in retaliation for their vehement condemnation of the BJP government in Gujarat that collaborated with the 2002 genocide of Muslims there. They are inciting the people of Nandigram and distributing arms to them to attack the Leftists to create a civil war like situation.
The 25% Muslim population of West Bengal has long supported the Left Front government there as being social justice oriented. The right wing political forces are trying to incite the Muslim majority East Midnapur district which is part of Nandigram, to rebel against the Left Front government of Bengal. The Muslims of Nandigram who are mostly landless peasants should realize that the new automobile factory in Nandigram will provide well paid industrial employment to them. The Bengal government has pledged to provide training and jobs to the local population in the new factories. However, if Muslims join the Trina Mool Congress side's political opportunism to oppose the Special Economic Zone, they will loose out on the industrial employment oopportunity and any future help from the Left government in affirmative actions for them. And they are not really being adversely affected by the Bengal government's Nandigram project.
With 50 seats in the Lok sabha the Leftist parties represent a very significant political force whose support is vital in the implementation of the Sachar Committee recommendations. Today the implementation of the Sachar Committee recommendation is the most important need of the Muslim community. They simply can not squander this opportunity. Thus it behooves the Muslim parties and leaders to support the Left Front government's new industrial policy in Nandigram. It is a fact that in West Bengal Muslims are very backward in the economic sphere. By supporting the Left's Nandigram initiative Muslims can generate much political capital that they can plough into encouraging the Leftist West Bengal government take concrete steps for the economic uplift of the Muslims of West Bengal.
Another encouraging development for the Muslims of West Bengal is the Bengal Leftist government's recent promulgation of Urdu as the second language in the state of West Bengal. This will save the declining Urdu language heritage of about one million Muslims in West Bengal whose origins are in U.P. and Bihar and hopefully encourage them overall.
As the above highlights demonstrate the Communist parties and groups are making visible overtures to link up with the Muslim community politically. And they are not asking the Muslims to dilute their practice of their religious faith. That makes it incumbent on the leaders and groups of the Muslims to meet the Communists half way, join hands and start a new era of political cooperation.
For sixty years Muslims supported the Congress party with their votes, and all that they received in return were empty and unfulfilled promises. Congress did not even make much effort to save the Muslims from countless communal riots that so totally destroyed the economy of the Muslim community. In contrast, despite their limited ability, Communists have come to the help of Muslims. Today there is a new opportunity for Muslims to form a new alliance with the Communist parties that can help them climb out of their educational and socioeconomic backwardness and also be in the mainstream of the nation.
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The writer is a community activist in metro Washington DC. He can be reached at kaleemkawaja@hotmail.com.
By Kaleem Kawaja
For all Indians the resurgence of India in recent years is an occasion pf pride and joy. And so it is for the 140 million minority Muslims in India. It makes Indian Muslims proud to see their country become one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. Also, a few Muslims have achieved positions of prestige in India and there are some success stories.
However it pains Muslims to find that most Muslims continue to be marginalized and stereotyped in India and often suspect in their nationalism, not to mention their utter social, economic and educational backwardness, far in excess of the national average. An overwhelming majority of today’s Muslims are of the pro-independence generation. When someone doubts their nationalism or alleges that they may be sympathizers of Pakistan, just because they are Muslims, it causes them a lot of anguish.
In sixty years in post independence India, Muslims have continued to hear questions like, “Now that they have Pakistan, what do the Muslims want?� And then came the slogan, “If you have to live in India you have to worship Lord Rama.� Even some otherwise enlightened Hindus are heard saying that “There is a Muslim problem that will not go away.� It pains Muslims that rather than view them as descendants of great patriotic Indians of the past, such as Emperor Akbar, King Tipu Sultan, and Sufi saints like Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer, Nizamuddin Aulia of Delhi, freedom fighters like Maulana Azad and Ghaffar Khan, and the creator of ballistic missiles PJ Abdul Kalam, et al, today a significant number of Hindus prefer to link the entire 140 million strong Muslim community with the handful of tyrants of the medieval past like Ghouri, Ghaznavi, Nadir Shah etc, and the isolated instances of their suppression of Hindus.
It bothers Muslims that the close proximity of mosques and temples in countless cities of India is not interpreted as a sign of the coexistence of Muslims and Hindus over the centuries, but as that of the forcible conversion of temples into mosques by Muslim kings of the past. As the Urdu poet late BD Pandey, a former governor of Uttar Pradesh said, “ Hazaaron saal ki yeh daastan. Aur unko yaad haiy sirf itna; Kay Alamgir (Aurangzeb) zaalim tha, hindukush tha, sitamgur tha.� ( Hindus and Muslims coexisting is a tale of a thousand years. And yet all they remember is that Alamgir (Auragzeb) was a suppressor of Hindus and a tyrant.)
Today after sixty years in independent India, despite their utter powerlessness and impoverishment, despite no government action against the culprits who massacred thousands of Muslims in Gujarat (2002), Mumbai (1993) and other cities in countless riots and who demolished many Muslim mosques and shrines, the Muslim Indians are neither willing to accept the epithet of Mohammadya Hindu, nor ready to give up their authentic home grown Indo-Islamic identity as the price for equal say in the affairs of their nation.
As erstwhile freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak said, “Freedom and equal rights is our birthright.� They also have no special love for Pakistan which is just another country for them. Today’s Indian Muslims want to be proactive in nation building and place great trust, not in the government but in the seventyfive percent secular Hindus who genuinely want to coexist in peace and dignity with them, remove their alienation from the mainstream of India and make them an active partner in the world class Indian nation of tomorrow.
The emergence of true grit secular leaders like VP Singh, Jyoti Basu, Sitaram Yechury, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Arjun Singh etal on the national scene after decades of vote bank politics and the politics of political expediency gives them hope for the future. Muslims fully expect the silent majority of secular Hindus to remain silent no more but speak up and demand that the power structure take action to redress the genuine plight and deprivation of the Muslim community.
By Kaleem Kawaja
The Muslim identity of India is a thoroughly Indian identity, very different from the Islamic identity of other Muslim countries. This unique Indo-Islamic identity has evolved over centuries of intermingling of traditions, culture, religion and social contacts. The influence that practices of other religions had on the Islamic tradition, and vice-versa also led to the evolution of unique socio-religious traditions of the Muslims in India.
Indian Muslims draw their traditions from Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Afghans, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Abysinians, and most of all from the traditions of the various regions of India. Indeed the Muslims of India, who are descendents of the original inhabitants of India for millennia, are as diverse as India itself.
By the 14th century when Turk kings ruled in the north, India had become a major center of Islamic learning. What Leonardo da Vinci represents to European renaissance, Amir Khusrou represents to Indian renaissance. In that period the major trend amongst the Muslims in India was to learn the philosophy, culture and tradition of India and to introduce the philosophy and culture of the Muslim world into India. Thus Khusrou was the pioneer in creating a new Indo-Islamic culture and tradition, and also a new language called Hindvi, the ancestor of today’s Hindi and Urdu.
Another major development in the Indo-Islamic ethos was in the area of architecture and technology. Ain-e-Akbari, the 16th century masterpiece gives ample evidence of Muslims’ having produced a variety of mechanical devices e.g. wagon mills, multi-barreled guns, screw cannons, and a variety of ingenuous machinery. Countless magnificent monuments and buildings all across India speak eloquently of the Muslims’ contribution to India’s distinct architecture. Muslims made major initiatives in the production of quality products like cosmetics, textiles, zari-work, metallurgy, glass and ceramics. Tipu Sultan is known to have developed rockets for use in his army against the expanding British campaign in India.
The development of irrigation, hydraulics and the construction of canals flourished as never before during the long Mogul reign. The harnessing of the principles of hydraulics and the use of devices such as deep wells, Persian wheel and artificial lakes, resulted in the development of the unique Mughal gardens. Large scale development of orchards and agricultural production was another enterprise of the Muslims.
Socially and culturally the greatest Muslim impact of the medieval era on India was through the Sufi movement which led to the growth of the Bhakti movement. The downfall of the Mogul empire after the first war of independence in 1857, saw Muslims of India go through a very traumatic period in which Muslims were subjected to much oppression by the new British rulers.
In the early decades of the 20th century growth of revolutionary and nationalistic literature occurred in the Muslim community. Slogans like “Inquilab Zindabad�, and songs like “Saaray jahan say acchha Hindostan hamaara�, and Allama Iqbal’s enthusiastic advocacy of the Indian nationalism are nuggets of India’s long freedom struggle.
The partition of India in 1947 was a traumatic event for the Muslims of India, a majority of whom had taken active part in India’s freedom struggle under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, and did not want the partition. With guidance from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Indian Muslims again started dedicating themselves to the building of the new nation, and to become active in various fields. After decades of struggling with this situation, Muslims are now well adjusted to the changed milieu of India.
Another important contribution of Muslims to the growth of the Indian culture is music and movies. Some of India’s top musicians of the 20th century, continuing on after 1947 are Muslims who contributed much to the substantial growth of genuine Hindustani vocal music, e.g. Khayal, Taraana, Dhrupad, Thumri, Qawwali, Ghazal, and musical instruments like Sitar, Sarod and Shehnai.
As the movie industry developed in India, Muslims took a leading role as actors/actresses, directors, producers, music-directors etc, putting Bollywood on the world stage of cinema.
In the last few decades India’s Muslims are again trying to re-invent the Aligarh movement of the late 1800s and dedicate themselves to acquiring education. Although much remains to be done in this area, as the 21st century dawned, one could see the Muslim community in various parts of India, north, south, east, west, make a sincere effort to start educational institutions.
The recent emergence of PJ Abul Kalam, India’s top missile scientist, Azim Premji, a pioneer in the rapidly growing Information Technology industry, and the internationally renowned painter MF Hussain, as the as top leaders in their fields in India, is a testimony that Muslims in India are bouncing back to find their niche in the world class powerhouse, that India is today.
By Kaleem Kawaja
From Moghul emperor Akbar to Bahadur Shah Zafar - the hero of India’s first war of independence, to Maulana Azad - the pre-eminent freedom fighter, to PJ Abdul Kalam – the creator of India’s missile program and beyond there is an illustrious unending string of Muslims who contributed substantially in the building of the Indian nation over the centuries.
The Past
Yes, there were several tyrants and plunderers like Ghouri, Ghaznavi and Nadir Shah among the Muslim kings during the 600 years that Muslims were in power in India. But by and large Muslim kings were moderates who held power by forming alliances of Muslims and Hindus.
During most of the 300 year Moghul empire it was a political alliance of Moghuls and Rajput Hindus that held power in North India. Together, they spent decades to extend their hold into South India waging continual wars against the Bahmani sultans, the Golkunda dynasty, the Qutubshahi dynasty - all of whom were Muslims.
Most Muslim rulers and their noblemen in India forsook the ethos of the West Asian nations of their origin and integrated themselves with the culture and soil of India to create the Indo-Islamic civilization. Much as in ancient times the Aryans of central Asia integrated themselves with the same Indian soil to develop the Hindu civilization.
Indian Muslims are justifiably proud of their Indo-Islamic heritage. It is a genuinely Indian civilization that the people of India belonging to different religions created by merging the culture of the Muslim immigrants from West Asia with that of the Hindus of India.
At the dawn of independence while a sizeable number of Muslims migrated to Pakistan, about 60 million at that time chose to stay in India. Without a doubt these people rejected the two nation theory, considered the formation of Pakistan a disaster for the Muslims and India, and believed in the secular and diverse milieu of India.
It can not be forgotten that a majority of Muslims in the provinces that remained in India supported Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Valabbahi Patel and Maulana Azad in their opposition to the partitioning of India.
The Present
However soon after independence in 1947 Muslims in India found themselves the victims of the backlash of the formation of Pakistan, an action that they had opposed strongly. They found themselves excluded from the mainstream and suspect in their nationalism, in the midst of people with whom they had grown up as youngsters.
Today there may be some Muslims in India who sympathize with Pakistan in preference to India. But their number may be no more than about one percent of the total Muslim population. The overwhelming majority are those who consider being Indian as important as being Muslim. A majority of them are people who were born after independence and for whom stories of India’s partition is something that they heard from their parents. Of their own free will Muslims vote for secular parties rather than for Muslim parties and candidates, who are not secular.
The result of the last election indicates that of the about thirty members of the Indian parliament, all of whom stood from constituencies with sizeable Muslim population, only three are from Muslim parties. Muslims in India never associate with any separatists or anti-national elements. As for the Kashmir problem, it is not a Hindu-Muslim problem. It is the result of years of mismanagement by successive governments in New Delhi and Srinagar, that allowed the festering impoverishment and deprivation of Kashmiris to acquire an anti-Indian establishment color.
The Despair
In-spite of their being 140 million strong and their overwhelming festering impoverishment, Muslims in India have no leadership worth its name, no coherent direction and no roadmap to break out of their sixty year old state- of- siege. The number of Indian Muslims living below poverty level has remained at 50 percent for decades, compared to the 35 percent national average. Similarly 45 percent of the Muslim community continues to be illiterate compared to 36 percent for all Indians. 50 percent of Muslim women are illiterate compared to 40 percent for all Indian women.
The blight and squalor of Muslim townships in India’s many cities reflects the contempt with which successive federal and state governments have treated the Muslim community for decades. The very acute shortage of schools, medical clinics, parks, paved roads, sanitation facilities and the large number of unemployed youth in Muslim localities is a gnawing reality. In most Muslim high schools there are either no libraries and laboratories, or they are in shambles. Despite many surveys, commissions and recommendations that successive federal and state governments have promulgated, the very poor condition of the basic civic infrastructure in Muslim townships flies in the face of the impressive modernized infrastructure in the rest of the country.
For decades a variety of political parties, e.g. Congress, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India and others that proclaim themselves as sympathetic to Muslims, have continued to exploit the Muslim community for their votes with empty and meaningless promises that have remained unfulfilled, even though waves of elections have come and gone. While these parties have given tickets to Muslim candidates for parliament and state assemblies, and some of them have won, these powerless Muslim representatives in the political infrastructure have no voice in bringing development to the Muslim townships. Over a decade ago these parties proclaimed repeatedly in UP and Bihar that Urdu – the mother tongue of Muslims in those states – will be the second language. But after more than a decade hardly any Urdu teachers have been hired for the numerous schools, and Urdu with which their heritage is directly linked continues to die.
In such circumstances it is indeed strange that some political parties and politicians are campaigning on the theme that successive governments have appeased Muslims.. This misleading propaganda has so charged the atmosphere that today every legitimate Muslim grievance, be it an appeal for financial relief for victims of communal violence, or basic infrastructure uplift, or better schools or preservation of Urdu, or protection of mosques and shrines, or freedom to retain their Muslim identity , is advertised by the obscurantist political forces as Muslims’ attempt to seek special privileges.
It is also feeding the frenzy that is resulting in grievous anti-Muslim violence that occurs regularly. While the Muslim community itself has to do a lot to resolve many of its problems, these problems can only be resolved if the Muslims take a bold lead and the Hindus in the power structure help them.
If the Indian Muslims are trying to retain their Indo-Islamic identity then so are all major ethnic groups in India. Punjabi Hindus have very different social practices than Tamil Hindus; Bengali Hindus have totally different social practices than the Gujarati Hindus; UP/Bihar Hindus have completely different cultural practices than the Andhra Pradesh Hindus. So why interpret the attempts of the Indian Muslims to retain their distinct identity as lack of integration and nationalism? Why not lend a helping hand to help break their state-of-siege?
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Kaleem Kawaja is President of Association of Indian Muslims of America, Washington DC. He can be reached on: kaleemkawaja@hotmail.com
By Kaleem Kawaja
Since India's independence in 1947, the continuance of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) as an institution of higher education for the Muslims of India has faced a question mark. In the continuing onslaught of reactionary forces on the welfare of minority Muslims in India, AMU often becomes a pawn in the hands of self-serving politicians. The legitimacy of the university as an institution where Indian Muslim youth have a right to better themselves in higher education and then go on to improve their community and their nation is frequently questioned. This despite the fact that Article 30 of the Indian Constitution guarantees the minority Muslims the right to build and autonomously manage educational institutions for their community's welfare.
Soon after independence efforts were made to extinguish the Muslim character of AMU and reduce the enrollment of Muslim students there. This happened soon after Osmania University's Muslim character was snuffed out in the aftermath of the fall of Nizam's rule in the erstwhile Hyderabad state. In a hostile reaction to the last Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan's brief effort to keep Hyderabad an independent state, the preferential admission of Muslim students at Osmania University, which was built entirely from grants by the Nizam and wealthy Muslims, was abolished. Suddenly Muslim students from lower middleclass backgrounds in Hyderabad who did not have the means to acquire good high school education and compete with Hindus, found the doors to meaningful careers closed to them.
The success of the reactionary forces at Osmania University emboldened them to launch the same campaign against AMU in 1948. Fortunately Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, with their high stature in the Indian government, were successful in thwarting that attempt and AMU continued to serve the Muslim community. After Nehru's departure, during the tenure of Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister, the same reactionary forces colluded again and mounted another campaign to take away the Muslim character of AMU. Fortunately Mrs Gandhi who was herself under severe attack at that time (1981) from RSS and other reactionary Hinduttava forces, had enough clout in the Indian parliament to pass legislation to help AMU retain its Muslim character.
But the reactionary forces have kept up their assaults on AMU. Recently a judge of the U.P. High Court declared that the above mentioned 1981 legislation of the Indian parliament is not valid and AMU is not a university of the minority Muslim community. Hence it cannot avail of Article 30 of the Constitution to reserve seats for Muslim students. This is a travesty of justice and common sense.
AMU began as the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College established in 1876 by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Most of the land on which the college was built was donated by wealthy Muslims. The buildings of the college were built from donations that Sir Syed Ahmad Khan collected mostly from a large number of Muslims, although a few of Sir Syed's Hindu friends also donated money. Over the decades AMU continued to expand its buildings, facilities, campus and faculty by collecting donations mostly from Muslims. The transformation of the college into a university in 1920 was the result of a tremendous collective effort of the entire Muslim community in India. Not only AMU was established and developed with the clear objective of imparting modern education to the Muslims of India, for over a century the Muslim community has continued to nurture AMU with its blood, sweat, tears and hopes, so that Muslims have an institution of higher education of their own.
Indeed in the pre-1947 era AMU was a quality university at par with India's better universities. Muslim boys and girls from Khyber Pass to Assam; from Kashmir to Kerala, and many Asian and African countries flocked to AMU to acquire higher education, and then to lend their hand in nation building. A large number of AMU alumnus lived up to its motto by becoming illustrious leaders and visionaries in their respective provinces and countries.
However after 1947 AMU became suspect in the eyes of the power structure of India and faced all kinds of harassment. Whenever there was any Hindu-Muslim riot anywhere in the country, the media circulated wild and false stories alleging that the AMU students were involved in them and the police authorities visited the AMU campus in search of suspected miscreants. In 1990 as insurgency flared up in Kashmir due to the wrong policies of the government, AMU campus was suspected of harboring the insurgents and searches were conducted. In the aftermath of 9/11/2001 media again circulated false rumors that AMU had become the den of Muslim terrorists associated with Al Qaeda and police raids were conducted on the campus. The fact remains that AMU is a modern and secular university like any other university in India, albeit with a distinct Muslim ethos. A significant number of non-Muslims, atheists and Communists at AMU have always thrived, both in the faculty and the student body, balancing out its dominant Muslim image.
Such constant targeting, suspicion and politicization of AMU caused much demoralizing at AMU resulting in a lowering of the standard of education. Added to that has been the strange ultra-mainstream attitude of some elitist Muslims in India who have displayed indifference towards AMU. However in the last decade the AMU management and the Muslim community have taken several steps to eliminate rot, improve the standard of instruction and modernize the system of education. The result is that today again the graduates of AMU have begun competing with graduates of other universities in employment and academic opportunities. Yet due to the poor standard of education in the high schools of the Muslim community in north India - AMU's hinterland - Muslim youth do not compete well with others for admission in Indian universities.
That forced AMU management to adopt an admission system that provided reservation for students from AMU's high school - mostly Muslims - for admission to the university. That allowed a little over half of the enrollment in professional colleges to be filled by Muslim students while the remainder went mostly to Hindus. This admission system being inefficient and restrictive, the university management recently set up a new admission system in which half of all seats in the professional colleges (engineering, medicine, applied sciences, business management) will be reserved for Muslims who will be selected by a competitive examination among Muslim students from all parts of India. That is a fair setup in a university that has been built from the scratch over 130 years with land and funds provided by the Muslims, and continuous contribution and dedication of many generations of India's Muslim community.
If this Affirmative Action program at AMU for India's impoverished Muslim community is removed, the proportion of Muslim students in these courses will plummet to about 10% from the about 55% now. That will cause a dangerous increase in frustration and despair of the already beleaguered Muslim community, with very harmful effect not only on the Muslims but the entire country.
One unparalleled benefit of AMU to the Muslims of India and thereby to the nation has been its proven ability to produce over the years a large number of Muslim doctors, engineers, scientists, academics, managers, administrators who came mostly from humble lower middleclass backgrounds. A large number of them went on to much achievement in their respective fields. Under conditions of near-siege and very difficult circumstances for the Muslim community since 1947, AMU greatly helped the impoverished and demoralized Indian Muslim community maintain its respectable presence and dignity in all sectors of India's society, economy and industry. Indeed AMU gave a rare opportunity to a large number of Muslim youth, who did not have any opportunity in a biased society, to become somebody and support their families and their community. But for this facility at AMU the Muslims of India would have been in worse shape than they are today, and the waves of their despair would have impacted the ramparts of the nation's well being.
The question also remains if a resurgent Indian nation, which is steadily modernizing and strengthening as a world-class power can afford to shut out the minority Muslims - fully 15 percent of its population - from dignified presence in all portals of society. And will that void not create much harmful turmoil in the country? Today the Indian nation has to also look at the solemn pledge that it gave to its minority citizens vis-à-vis Article 30 of the Constitution that allows them to build and autonomously manage their educational institutions. Is it in the interests of the nation that every few years a storm is raised throughout the country about AMU's status as a minority university, and the future of the Muslim youth in India to obtain higher education is threatened?
Looking at the big picture it behooves all especially India's Muslims and secular Hindus and Christians to come together and lobby the government and parliament in New Delhi to pass an unambiguous legislation. It should remove for ever all doubts, and unequivocally reaffirm the Muslim character of AMU, and allow it autonomous management including reservation of half of all enrollment for Muslim students from across India. The strong network of AMU Old boys and their organizations, and other organizations of Indian Muslims should pool their resources to become an effective vehicle for such lobbying.
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