The Telegraph
November 3 , 2009
Jamiat trains homosexuality gun on Congress
TAPAS CHAKRA BORTY
Lucknow, Nov. 2: Jamiat-e-Ulema, an influential Muslim body, today issued a veiled ultimatum to the Congress, saying it will not tolerate any legal sanction to homosexuality.
The Jamiat, which has an age-old political bond with the Congress, said any attempt to “liberalise” the moral fabric would be resisted.
Thousands of clerics who came to attend a three-day convention at Deoband urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi to work out a consensus among various social and religious groups and challenge a recent court ruling permitting consensual sex between adults of the same sex.
The Jamiat also announced its opposition to the UPA’s move to set up a Central Madarsa Board to modernise and reform thousands of madarsas across the country.
Tomorrow, Union home minister P. Chidambaram and yoga guru Baba Ramdev are likely to address the gathering. The Jamiat is looking forward to hearing both, though for different reasons.
Ramdev had unsuccessfully moved the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court judgement legalising gay sex among consenting adults. The yoga guru had even contended that homosexuality is a disease that is curable.
Maulana Syed Jalaluddin Umri, a senior member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, told the gathering today that “consensus should be evolved for challenging the Delhi High Court order in the Supreme Court”.
“Homosexuality does not match India’s mijaaz (cultural milieu, taste and sensibilities). It cannot be encouraged in our society. Moreover, medical evidence has also been found of homosexuals being carriers of HIV/AIDS,” Umri said.
“In Islam, homosexuality is treated as gunaah (sin),” said another cleric, pointing that in Islam societies homosexuality is forbidden and ordains capital punishment.
In Lucknow and Delhi, Muslim leaders of the Congress expressed concern over the Jamiat’s aggressive campaign against removal of Section 377 — which penalises “unnatural” sexual activity — as a sort of indictment of the UPA.
Party leaders, who did not wish to be quoted, said they have been trying to convince the Jamiat and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board that the UPA had nothing to do with the recent court ruling. Second, it is neither encouraging nor advocating homosexuality.
Privately, some Muslim leaders from the party wonder if the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are using the Muslim clergy to antagonise the community from the Congress. According to this school of thought, the SP-BSP, who have several “links” in Muslim religious outfits, believe conservative Muslim society can turn against the Congress if religious leaders manage to drive home a campaign that UPA is promoting “debauchery” and “perversion”.
Among the speakers at the Deoband meet, Maulana Mahmood Madni, general secretary of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind and Rajya Sabha member, said the proposal for a Central Madarsa Board was not acceptable as it has aroused strong suspicion.
“Let the central government come up with a better idea. The task of forming the board be handed over to the community seniors and let the board to be formed undertake the exercise to bring together whatever boards exist today,” he said.
Justice Mohammad Sohail Ejaz Siddiqui, the chairman of the central commission for minority educational institutions, mooted the proposal for formation of the board.
“The central government decided to establish such an institution, where the Muslim students can study religious as well as scientific subjects simultaneously under the guidance of a Central Madarsa Board. The teaching of all subjects up to standard XII according to CBSE pattern would be arranged there without any interference of the government bodies,” he said.
WITH INPUTS FROM RASHEED KIDWAI
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