Indian Muslims carrying “double burden”

[sonz]

Indian Muslims carry a double burden because they’re accused of being “appeased” by the government and at the same time are seen as “unpatriotic”, a government-sanctioned study said on Thursday.

"They carry a double burden of being labeled as 'anti-national' and as being 'appeased' at the same time," according to the report, which was submitted to parliament.

India’s ruling Congress party, which proudly flags its pluralist identity, has been accused by opposition Hindu nationalists of "appeasing" the country's 138 million Muslims, who make up over 13% of the country’s population.

Hardline Hindus claim that the Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to follow Islamic laws with regards to inheritance, divorce and marriage.

While many Muslims feel they should prove that they are not "terrorists", the alleged appeasement didn’t improve the community's social and economic status, the report said.

Analysts say ordering the report, which was conducted by a panel led by Justice Minister Rajinder Sachar, was a bold step by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a Sikh.

Eighty percent of the India’s officially secular population is Hindu, but the country also hosts substantial minorities of Christians, Buddhists and Sikhs, as well as the world's third-largest population of Muslims.

There have been several attacks on the Muslim community since India's independence from British rule in 1947 and the formation of Pakistan. Thousands of Muslims have been killed in riots, with police often accused of turning a blind eye to the violence against them.

Hundreds of Indian Muslims were arrested following the July blasts in Mumbai which killed at least 186 people, but the vast majority was released without charge.

"This is the largest Muslim minority on earth. Treating Muslims as monsters or victims is not the answer," Indian commentator Mahesh Rangarajan said.

Just being dressed as a Muslim is enough to create suspicion, the report, ordered last March, said.

"Muslim men donning a beard and a 'topi' (skull cap) are often picked up (by police) for interrogation from public places like parks, railway stations and markets," the report said.

Muslim women wearing a face veil or full-body burqa also complain of being harassed at markets, hospitals, and schools and found it hard to find a job.

The report also found that Indian Muslims are severely under-represented in the police, the army and are almost non-existent in the country's spy agencies.

"There has to be very serious and effective public action particularly in education and employment as well to prevent discrimination against Muslims," analyst Rangarajan said.

-- AJP and Agencies

[Islamicboy]

Indian muslims need to give up there hindu cultures and come back to taweed! The way some people who stay on taweed or belive in oneness of alah give wrong dawah. All they do is go to mosques o people who dont follow taweed and attack.. Indian muslims dont get me started on them also same thing with pakistan, indo, mayasia etc...

[Islamicboy]

^^
That post may seem off topic :)

[Pk_#2]

Indian muslims need to give up there hindu cultures and come back to taweed! The way some people who stay on taweed or belive in oneness of alah give wrong dawah. All they do is go to mosques o people who dont follow taweed and attack.. Indian muslims dont get me started on them also same thing with pakistan, indo, mayasia etc...

*A minority of...*

Peace... :offended:

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[Mateen]

Salam,

I am an Indian.
The very word Muslim sparks kind of hatred for us muslims here in many sections. But there are many people who have no problems with Muslims though.

We muslims here are in a fix, as we cannot follow Islamic rulings and cannot deal with the unjust system either.
We are ordered by Islam to establish Islam in our lives and even in our political system. But we cannot do it.
We cannot seperate ourself from India.

I love India but these religious problems are a part and parcel of being in this world I guess.

Many thinkers tell us Muslims, as we do not differentiate between State and religion, we should leave India and set up a country of our own. They apply this to all muslims all over the world basically. Another impossibility.

We live at a point where there can be communal riots anytime. Muslims are highly ignorant of Islam and Hindus of their culture.

There is a general feeling of hatred. People just hate eachother but simply tolerate us here as any riot will cause disturbance in our business internationally.

Its the price to pay for being a muslim, not only in India but anywhere I guess.

But we will pay. We will follow Islam. Good efforts are being done to explain Islam to non-muslims here. But Hindus hate us. Thats the fact and the situation is very sensitive. Since we are more than 100 million we are huge in number and Hindus are divided. The caste, creed and sects in Hindus is too much to stand against Muslims here.

Allah is protecting us from the ones who hate us.

We need leaders who speak for us in parliament but our leaders are only for money. They are highly ignorant. So are the leaders overall.

No education, high unemployment and gangsters as leaders are a real threat to us.

But we practice Islam freely. Nobody stops us from worshipping Allah , going to mosques, and preach Islam.But you never know when things change here.

If Muslim countries do not have Islamic ruling, fight against their own brothers, then what can you expect from unbelievers.

Anything. Anything.

We pray Allah to be with us .Amen.

Wassalam.

[Islamicboy]

*A minority of...*

Peace... :offended:

Nope only miniority are the good ones there. I know pople who come from majo areas communties where muslims live. Majority are like the way i have described. Wrong people cliam to be scholars who are lost and because of them thousands get lost.

[Pk_#2]

Jeez, majority then, but NOT all,

watch how you type,

tc bro!

AsalamuAlaykum!

[AFDAL]

Indian muslims need to give up there hindu cultures and come back to taweed! The way some people who stay on taweed or belive in oneness of alah give wrong dawah. All they do is go to mosques o people who dont follow taweed and attack.. Indian muslims dont get me started on them also same thing with pakistan, indo, mayasia etc...

I am a muslim of indian orgin , I totally agree with you - that indian sub continent muslim should give up the Hindu culture . Plus the muslims of india should also give up the to compare up with the hindus.

[AFDAL]

The so called muslim leaders are muslim by name, and when election comes these so called leaders comes to the muslims for vote, and after being elected - these so called leaders becomes much more secular than their hindu counterparts, and forget about the promises that they have made to their muslim brothers and sisters .
I would like to give one example - Najma Heptullah - grand daughter of Maulana Abul Kallam Azad - who was long associated with the congress , but when congress left her and did not give her a chance to be elected in the Indian parliament , this same got elected by the Hindutva BJP .

[Mateen]

Salam IslamicBoy and Afdal brother.

Yes I agree too. We muslims are to be balmed here in India.

If we cannot follow Islam in our lives, if we cannot rally against those attacking our parliament{ all names start from Abdul...by the way}, if we cannot produce leaders who know Islamic laws, then if tomorrow someone or even I die in a bomb blast then I am responsible and not those extremists.

There are 2 major problems here.
First is Islamic and understanding of its language, we should start to learn arabic, understand Quran and Hadith . I bet a lot of matters will be clear to us muslims.

Second problem is what the entire India is facing. Its the Gangster Politicians.

Its getting very difficlut for a good muslim to stand in elections.
Can he do favours for the party workers later after he wins elections? No.
Can he lure party workers with alcohol and food before elections so that he wins? No.

Highly ignorants, very miserable state.

Daily 5 times when I go for prayer I have never reached the mosque without hearing a few dirty words{ except for fajr} from muslim brothers who keep fighting with other muslim brothers.

Visit any area and if its dirty, with all kinds of dirt lying everywhere and free sesame for cows, then 90% chances that it is Muslim area.

The third problem is with the middle class Muslims. This class wants their children to get enough education to get a good job, or go to Middle east adn lead a comfortable life. This is the class which know a little about Islam and even after knowing they turn away from it.
Well you can do nothing about it they say and carry on with their daily routine.

Nobody wants to think of a purpose higher than oneself.

I keep reminding to Imams of mosques to tell people how important is understanding of quran and hadith but very few people respond at all.

We vote muslim leaders so that we have atleast a few people in the parliament. Thats all. We dont expect anything from them. They are money-hungry guys and basically to expect them to do something for Islam, is our own stupidity.

What we need is 2 step revival.

First, revival of faith.
Second, Producing highly qualified People to be our leaders.

Pray Allah we understand this. meanwhile lets try to get more poeple to understand Quran.{ I have read the quran in english and I now what I have been missing}

Wassalam.

[AFDAL]

Salam IslamicBoy and Afdal brother.

Yes I agree too. We muslims are to be balmed here in India.

If we cannot follow Islam in our lives, if we cannot rally against those attacking our parliament{ all names start from Abdul...by the way}, if we cannot produce leaders who know Islamic laws, then if tomorrow someone or even I die in a bomb blast then I am responsible and not those extremists.

There are 2 major problems here.
First is Islamic and understanding of its language, we should start to learn arabic, understand Quran and Hadith . I bet a lot of matters will be clear to us muslims.

Second problem is what the entire India is facing. Its the Gangster Politicians.

Its getting very difficlut for a good muslim to stand in elections.
Can he do favours for the party workers later after he wins elections? No.
Can he lure party workers with alcohol and food before elections so that he wins? No.

Highly ignorants, very miserable state.

Daily 5 times when I go for prayer I have never reached the mosque without hearing a few dirty words{ except for fajr} from muslim brothers who keep fighting with other muslim brothers.

Visit any area and if its dirty, with all kinds of dirt lying everywhere and free sesame for cows, then 90% chances that it is Muslim area.

The third problem is with the middle class Muslims. This class wants their children to get enough education to get a good job, or go to Middle east adn lead a comfortable life. This is the class which know a little about Islam and even after knowing they turn away from it.
Well you can do nothing about it they say and carry on with their daily routine.

Nobody wants to think of a purpose higher than oneself.

I keep reminding to Imams of mosques to tell people how important is understanding of quran and hadith but very few people respond at all.

We vote muslim leaders so that we have atleast a few people in the parliament. Thats all. We dont expect anything from them. They are money-hungry guys and basically to expect them to do something for Islam, is our own stupidity.

What we need is 2 step revival.

First, revival of faith.
Second, Producing highly qualified People to be our leaders.

Pray Allah we understand this. meanwhile lets try to get more poeple to understand Quran.{ I have read the quran in english and I now what I have been missing}

Wassalam.

Yes brother I totally agree with you . I would like to focus again one of our own fault ( actually I do not know really whose fault - ours or whose ) . Here the stories goes " GUWAHATI: Majority of the 50 Guwahati Masjid committees and three out of the four Id-gah committees have launched a tirade against North East Haj Pilgrims Reception Committee general secretary Omar Rashid accusing him of misappropriating Haj funds. The move comes after Rashid, who also faces charges of dealing in wine, was re-elected to the post. The Masjid and the Id-gah committees threatened that if their concerns were not addressed, they would form a separate committee to look into the Haj pilgrimage."



Here we can find a person who heads the Haj committee - involve in misappropriating funds and also involve in alcohol .

[asmoore84]

Wow! I had no idea that Indian Muslims had it so hard in their own country!

I see, that in light of the way the world's affairs are going right now, that it would be next to impossible to create a seperate state for yourselves, but what about moving to an Islamic state?

It is unfair that you should be unable to live your life in accordance with your beliefs.

Good luck, I hope things change for your people.

[Nablus]

There has to be very serious and effective public action particularly in education and employment as well to prevent discrimination against Muslims," analyst Rangarajan said.

May Allah support them

[AFDAL]

Democracy Besieged

By Ram Puniyani

The Milli Gazette

There may be various parameters to judge the prevalence of democratic spirit in a country. One of them may be how well the minorities are doing, how safe they feel, how aligned they feel, how much at home they feel. Whatever was the answer to these questions couple of decades earlier, today it seems the answer to these questions is becoming more and more negative and the quantitative worsening of these parameters is leading to the qualitative transformation of social scene towards abysmal social scenario.

One has been hearing the aggressive propaganda that minorities are being appeased in this country for the vote bank politics. This was being 'successfully' injected to the societal consciousness despite Gopal Singh Commission, which portrayed the grim picture of the socio economic condition of the Muslim minority. Close to two decades later Rajinder Sachar Committee, on the basis of thorough inquiry has not only confirmed what Gopal Singh Commission found but also that trends are in the direction of further worsening of the socio-political indices of Muslim minorities. The data shows that Muslim community is at the bottom of economic indices, being worse than even the SCs, STs. They are worse off in education, and are far behind OBCs in employment. Their representation in judiciary, bureaucracy is very poor compared to their percentage in population, and more so in class I and II jobs, they are very low down in landholdings, and much worse in employment in private sector. The number of MLAs and MPs coming from this community has also been declining over a period of time. Of course there is one place where they are over-over represented and that's in prisons. One may add there is other data which tells us that their representation amongst the riot victims is also very heavy, more than 80% riot victims being Muslims and not to be left behind most of the POTA detainees also happen to be Muslims!

The biases against them abound in all spheres; the police machinery in particular is the biggest victim of these biases and prejudices. This becomes apparent in their role during the riots and after the riots. The latest in the series is of course the pattern of investigations followed by them. By now most of those in the police machinery have come to firmly believe, and this is the basis of their 'professional conduct', that Muslims are criminals. The propaganda emerging from some rumor manufacturing factory that 'all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims' is not only becoming part of social common sense but also the core guiding principle of investigation authorities. This makes their complex job also very easy. Recently the investigation of Mumbai bomb blasts and later Malegaon blast investigation has seen the targeting of Muslims through and through. Right on day next of Mumbai blasts Muslim youth were detained in hordes, to be released only when a section of the community went on protest. But the pattern remains the same.

While someone from top leadership of police issued a formal appeal that they want to play a fair game and are open to listen to the innocents if approached. Some social workers of repute were also taken in by these formal appeals and narrated through newspaper columns as to how approaching police authorities is 'working' in getting the innocents released. What levels of democracy we have reached that police will nab the innocents for the crime not committed by them, than they will ring up the top police officials or the reputed social worker/s to get themselves released. What if the immediate havladar decides that you cannot use the mobile now, what if you are intimidated beyond your wits to be able to contact these worthies? The question remains how many from the community can have access to these socials workers, whatever be the levels of their accessibility. How many from community can contact the top leadership of the police which makes these claims? In the face of such massive goofs, which have been committed in such cases, mostly due to biased and prejudiced approach of authorities is there not a need for training the police in the lessons of pluralism removing their biases and prejudices if that be possible. Does a help line exist for an average person? Does not a need exist for creating an effective help line?

There are media reports telling us how innocents are being trapped in different ways during interrogation, what do we do for that? Do the people know their rights in the face of being apprehended by the Khaki uniforms? Is it not the responsibility of the state to let the people know their rights also when they are being booted and tortured to extract 'confessions from them? Do we not need to have provisions that without the legal help to the one arrested the arresting authorities will not proceed with their various 'degree' methods of increasing levels of torture to force the accused speak what Khaki uniformed one's want to hear to make their job easy. Incidentally that also fits in to the scheme of their line of preformed opinions?

The system is so insular, and by now becoming so self righteous that the appeal from Prime Minister, not to target the particular community fell on deaf years of the hardened stiff collared khaki machinery. In Malegaon the limits of police bias are openly apparent. And being disgusted with that the local Muslim community had to resort to day long peaceful bandh to vent out their frustration and anguish. The partisanship of the investigation is crystal clear to those who have been following the incidents in Maharashtra. The Bajrang Dal, whose activists died while making bomb in Nanded, is totally protected by the other type of bias, 'affirmative bias' to be applied to some sections and political streams of society. The bomb shells and RDX which were found in Shanker Shelke shop in Ahmadnagar seems to be of no relevance and it does not give any clues to our professionals in uniforms. The sketch of the person who bought the cycle on which bombs were kept has been relegated to the background and the thesis that SIMI activists have done this to kill exclusive Muslim crowd near Bada Kabristan seems to be the central point of investigation as far as our agencies are concerned.

Is it that the sectarian ideology has already completed its task of ensuring that the half truths, half lies spread by it are the core operating principles of the large section of bureaucracy and police? The insecurity of other minority, the Christians, especially in Adivasi areas knows no bounds and through organizations like Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram the divisive and intimidating role is being carried to the full extent in remote places. The news of attacks on Christian nuns ad missionaries have become a matter of routine and no more has any 'news value' as per the parameters of our media. At social and cultural level the Freedom of Religion Bills in various BJP ruled states are an open threat to the Christian missionaries working in the area of education and health in deep interiors. Madhya Pradesh government like other BJP governments has been manipulating the things at cultural level. It has been naming most of the social schemes in Hindu imageries, like water irrigation projects as Jalabhishek, marriage support to the poor as Kanyadan and so on. Gujarat as a Hindu Rashtra has already relegated the Muslims out into refugee camps away from the main areas. Is it a return of old untouchable ghettoes?

It seems the democratic ethos is under severe threat and the state of alienation of minorities is a pointer to that. It seems that even without being in power, the BJP-RSS agenda of Hindu Nation is already unfolding itself in a threatening manner in BJP ruled states and in a subtle and overt fashion in other states where BJP is not in power. In those states due to the communal attitude of some of those in power and the communalization of state apparatus, police and bureaucracy, the restrictions on liberal democratic spaces are mounting. Is it time for celebration in RSS headquarters or is there time still for it to be taken as a warning signal by those who wish to preserve and strengthen democracy. A lip service to minority welfare and security will not do. Those in leadership who are committed to the values of Liberty, Equality and Community (national) need to wake up and take stock of the all round intimidation and alienation of minorities. If Rajinder Sachar Committee report and Malegaon bandh does not wake them up, what will?