India: IMSD deplores the demonisation of sexual minorities by Kerala’s rightwing Muslims

 Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD)

March 17, 2023

PRESS STATEMENT

IMSD deplores the demonisation of sexual minorities by Kerala’s rightwing Muslims

Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) strongly condemns the concerted effort by the Muslim rightwing in Kerala -- including leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), and some Muslim-run websites -- to ridicule, vilify, denigrate and demonise Muslims who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

It is a tragic irony that while the minority Muslim community in India is itself the target of rampant Islamophobia, the conservatives among them are hurling hate speech at the sexual minorities (minority within the minority). What logic or ethics makes Islamophobia wrong but homophobia, queerphobia or transphobia right? Not surprisingly, the Muslim right has much in common with the Hindu right.

The latest trigger for the fulminations is the news last month of a transgender couple from Kerala -- Zahad Fazil, a trans man and Ziya Payal, a trans woman – having decided to be biological parents of a baby. The couple reportedly took this decision because adoption is not an option for transgender persons.

What perhaps added to the fervour of the self-appointed custodians of morality is the fact that Kerala’s health minister Veena George promptly congratulated the couple on the phone and directed the Kozhikode Medical College to provide all treatment for free. She also arranged for breast milk to be provided to the baby from the human milk bank.

Being targets of hate politics themselves, Muslims should know the difference between free speech and hate speech. Comparing homosexuality to paedophilia, targeting members of the LGBTQIA+ community with words and expressions such as “a shame”, “mentally ill”, “worst kind of people”, “people in need of treatment” etc. are hate speech, not free speech.

The very Constitution which guarantees to Muslims the right to freely profess, practice and propagate their faith cannot but also guarantee to sexual minorities their right to publicly proclaim their presence, hold a Pride Parade.

The United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) begins with the recognition “of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family…” So says the Constitution of Indian too.

Even as the humiliated, bruised and battered Indian Muslim community struggles for its own right to a dignified life, it must learn to respect and uphold the “right to dignity” of all citizens. 

Signatories:

1.      A. J. Jawad, Co-convener IMSD, Lawyer, Chennai

2.      Aarif Kapadia, IMSD, businessman, Mumbra

3.      Aftab Ahmed Khan, Journalist, Nasik

4.      Feroze Mithiborwala, Co-convener IMSD, Mumbai

5.      Gauhar Raza, ANHAD, Poet, Scientist, Delhi

6.      Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, Islamic Scholar, Writer, Translator, New Delhi

7.      Irfan Engineer, Co-convener IMSD, SSSC, Mumbai

8.      Javed Akhtar, IMSD, Poet, Lyricist, former MP, Mumbai

9.      Kasim Sait, IMSD, Businessman, Chennai

10. Khadija Farouqui, IMSD, Delhi

11. Lara Jesani, Lawyer, PUCL, Mumbai

12. Masooma Ranalvi, IMSD, We Speak Out, Delhi

13. Mohammed Imran, PIO, USA

14. Muniza Khan, IMSD, CJP. Varanasi

15. Najid Hussain, Water Scientist, PIO, USA

16. Naseeruddin Shah, Actor, Mumbai

17.  Nasreen Contractor, Co-convener IMSD, Mumbai

18.  Nasreen Fazelbhoy, IMSD, Mumbai 

19.  Neelima Sharma, Theatre person, Delhi

20.  (Dr) Ram Puniyani, IMSD, Author, Social Activist, Mumbai

21.  Rashida Tapadar, Academic, Activist, Nagaland

22.  Ratna Pathak, Actor, Mumbai

23.  Taizoon Khorakiwala, Businessman, Philanthropist, NRI

24.  Sabah Khan, IMSD, Parcham, Mumbai

25.  Saif Mahmood, IMSD, Supreme Court Lawyer, Delhi

26.  Saleem Saboowala, Activist, Mumbai

27.  Shabnam Hashmi, ANHAD, Delhi

28.  Shafaat Khan, Writer, Mumbai

29.  (Dr) Shahnawaz Alam, Associate Professor, UP

30.  Shama Zaidi, IMSD, Documentary Film Maker, Mumbai

31.  Shamsul Islam, Author, Delhi

32.  Simantini Dhuru, Documentary Film Maker, Mumbai

33.  Sohail Hashmi, SAHMAT, Delhi

34.  Sultan Shahin, Editor-in-chief & Publisher, New Age Islam, Delhi  

35.  Teesta Setalvad, IMSD, CJP, Mumbai

36.  Yash Paranjpe, Activist, Mumbai

37.  Zakia Soman, BMMA, Delhi/Gujarat

38.  Zeenat Shaukatali, IMSD, Islamic Scholar, Wisdom Foundation

 

 

India: ISIS video of Srinagar attack portends ill | Bharat Bhushan

Deccan Herald

ISIS video of Srinagar attack portends ill

Bharat Bhushan

The Islamic State has announced its presence in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) by releasing an alleged live video recording of the shooting of a police officer on Tuesday July 12 in the heart of Srinagar. The incident left one police officer dead and two injured. The video was released by Amaq news agency, an online news outlet linked to the IS. It has been described by the New York Times as the “first point of publication for claims of responsibility” for terrorist attacks.

The video shot with a body camera worn by the attacker shows him shooting at a police officer, changing the magazine of his pistol mid-way through the shooting, attacking a stationary police vehicle and showering bullets on a policeman standing under a Chinar tree vainly trying to shield himself with his arms covering his face.

Up to now, angry youngsters used to wave the IS flag to rile the Indian security forces. Now it would seem that the IS had made inroads into Kashmir and is willing to declare its presence. This has serious security ramifications. It has the potential to  shorten the ongoing Amarnath Yatra as well as the postponement of the proposed legislative elections in the Union Territory.

There is no central authority which grants membership of the IS to any terrorist outfit. Any militant group can in principle join it online. It is quite another thing, however, for the IS to claim a group and its activities as its own. The terrorist attack in Srinagar’s Lal Bazaar has also been claimed by The Resistance Force (TRF) associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba but the self-styled Islamic State (Hind Province) have threatened it for doing so.

It would be unwise to dismiss the July 12 incident as a minor attack using a pistol. If the IS has indeed made inroads in the Valley, then not only could such attacks go up but there could be bigger and qualitatively different attacks in the future. Jammu may be particularly vulnerable. Experience elsewhere in the world shows that the capacity of IS to wreak havoc cannot be underestimated.

If the terrorist activities of the IS increase in J&K, the carefully managed narrative of Delhi that everything is “normal” in the Union Territory stands in danger of falling apart. The anti-India narrative in J&K has been contained up to now by cracking down on the media. While the pro-establishment journalists in J&K today are afraid of moving out of their homes, the independent or critical journalists are not allowed to operate freely. This way the Indian public is denied knowledge of the ground situation in Kashmir.

The government may now also find it difficult to hold elections to the UT legislative assembly any time soon. Neither the pro-India mainstream politicians nor the pro-BJP politicians created by the establishment would be able to move about freely. Not  many amongst them would be willing to contest legislative assembly elections putting their lives at risk. It could become next to impossible for the administration to provide security for all politicians in Kashmir including District Development Council members, sarpanches and panches, already holed up in secure hotels away from their constituencies.  

Meanwhile, the security forces may continue shooting  militants few days after every terrorist strike, claiming to have killed the ‘mastermind’ of the attack. Nonetheless, the narrative that the administration has the situation in Kashmir fully under control and terrorism has been eliminated is likely to become less and less credulous.

That is not all. The targeting of minorities in the rest of India by Hindutva activists, often with the connivance of the official machinery, may facilitate the entry of IS outside Kashmir as well. When political doors are shut on a minority community, its grievances not addressed by the state and the civil society is prevented from assuaging its sense of injustice, the ground is fertile for extremism.

Another major consequence of an increasing presence of  IS in terrorist activities would be that the Indian establishment would have no one to negotiate with. Unlike a  political or sovereign entity, the IS cannot be engaged in a dialogue. India would no longer be able to blame Pakistan for every violent incident in J&K (or even elsewhere) as it can be no one’s case that Pakistan controls the activities of the IS. Such claims, even if made by the Indian government, would not hold much water with the international community.

Even changing the Lieutenant Governor of J&K to a Muslim face will not help. The immediate issue is not whether a Manoj Sinha can be replaced with, say for example, a Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi or another minority leader acceptable to Delhi. It is the suffocation that the Kashmiri society feels after the cataclysmic events of August 2019 – the subjective perception of the people that they have been wronged -- which needs to be addressed.

IMSD statement on murder of Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur by 2 Muslim fanatics

 Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy

Press Statement

IMSD condemns in strongest terms the brutal murder of Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur by 2 Muslim fanatics, who have openly declared that they did so for the love of the prophet & thus is a case of death for Blasphemy!

A tailor by profession, Kanhaiya’s only ‘crime’ was that he put up an online post in support of Nupur Sharma. India is a country governed by its constitution which means that its citizens are obligated to follow the rule of law. We cannot have any sympathy for those extremist Muslims who espouse the ideals of the Taliban or ISIS, or those extremist Hindus who want to turn this country into a fascist Hindu Rashtra.

Some years back, we had a similar attack on a migrant Muslim worker, who was hacked to death on camera by Shambhulal Raigar. While there were online petitions supporting Raigar, it is heartening to note that all Muslim organizations have condemned the killing of Kanhaiya in unequivocal terms.

IMSD reiterates its stand that there is no place for such an extremist mindset in India and that the culprits be handed the strictest possible punishment.

We would also like to underline the fact we are disturbed by the proclivity of certain Muslim organizations who are demanding and campaigning for blasphemy laws, which is a very regressive demand. Blasphemy laws are unacceptable in a secular liberal constitutional democracy, and IMSD strongly opposes this demand by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and other conservative Muslim organizations.

We advise those who speak on behalf of Muslim issues to desist from making emotional, bigoted, intolerant and fanatical appeals in the name of religion. As citizens of this country, the Muslim cause is best served through appeals to the constitutional ethos rather than some pan-Islamic rallying together in the name of saving the honor of the prophet.

We also need to understand that incidents like Udaipur also send a chilling message to dissenters within the Muslim community. The case of Saad Ansari, a young 19 year old educated boy from Bhiwandi (Maharashtra), who spoke his mind on the issue of blasphemy is a further case in point. The local Muslim community hounded him no end, even physically attacked him but we saw no condemnation from any Muslim organization or individual. Saad was made to apologise & read the Kalma again by the 150 strong mob. For his son’s safety, his father has had to send Saad away to study. If a young Muslim boy is fettered and not allowed to speak his mind, then it is a telling statement on the depths of intolerance that we Muslims have descended to. While we rightly agitate for Zubair, the AltNews co-founder being hounded by the state, we are equally concerned about our regressive attitude which sent the young Saad away from his family. The police have registered cases both against Saad and the violent mob.

The IMSD appeals to all Muslims not to fall for the rightwing-Islamist rhetoric. Indian Muslims have been an exception to the worldwide Islamist movement, by shunning violence and reposing their faith in the constitution. It is with this faith in the foundation of our republic that Indian Muslims have categorically condemned the ISIS-style beheading of Kanhaiya in Udaipur. We hope that the same ethos also makes them withdraw cases against Saad Ansari.

In these difficult times, it’s essential that the Indian Muslim community seriously and honestly introspect on the intolerance & bigotry within the community and arrive at ways to combat such cases of violent fanaticism.

It is imperative that we as Indians unite to resist and defeat all forms of religious extremism, hatred & violence and work towards creating a peaceful harmonious society, not one built on mere tolerance, but on mutual respect and acceptance of each others faiths, religions and cultures.

Signatories:

• Javed Anand, National Convener, IMSD

• Feroze Mithiborwala, National Co-Convener, IMSD
• (9029277751)

• Anand Patwardhan, World-renowned Documentary Filmmaker

• Tushar Gandhi, Author, Human Rights Defender

• Arshad Alam, Writer

• Anjum Rajabali, Film script writer

• Adv. A W Jawwad

• Adv. Lara Jesani

• Amir Rizvi, Creative artist

• Muniza Khan, Researcher

• Com. Preeti Shekhar, Social Activist

• M A Khalid, Social Activist

• Khadija Farouqui, Social Activist

• Arif Kapadia, Social Activist

Made for TV hatespewing maulana - Meet Ilyas Sharafuddin

 https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/ilyas-sharafuddin-has-history-making-anti-hindu-comments-yet-he-invited-repeatedly-tv-news

India: Congress party’s Deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma slammed the alliance with Indian Secular Front (ISF), a Muslim outfit headed by a firebrand cleric, in West Bengal

 The Times of India

‘G-23’ leader slams Congress tie-up with ISF

TNN | Mar 2, 2021, 03.04 AM IST

NEW DELHI: The dissenting ‘G-23’ bloc’s showdown with the Congress leadership sharpened significantly on Monday with deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma slamming the party’s alliance negotiations with Indian Secular Front (ISF), a Muslim outfit headed by a firebrand cleric, in West Bengal, saying it went against the “Nehru-Gandhi secularism”.

Sharma’s strong comments, coming a day after another leading ‘G-23’ member, Ghulam Nabi Azad, praised PM Modi for being “upfront” about his roots, dealt an embarrassing blow to Congress in the middle of seat-sharing negotiations for the election campaign in five states.
Referring to the joint Kolkata rally of Congress, Left and the ISF of Furfura Sharif cleric Abbas Siddiqui, Sharma tweeted, “Congress’s alliance with parties like ISF and other such forces militates against the core ideology of the party and Gandhian and Nehruvian secularism, which forms the soul of the party. These issues need to be approved by the CWC.”

He added, “Congress cannot be selective in fighting communalists but must do so in all its manifestations, irrespective of religion and colour. The presence and endorsement of the West Bengal PCC president is painful and shameful, he must clarify.” In Jammu over the weekend, where G-23 leaders attended a function to felicitate Azad, the J&K leader said though he and Modi were opposed politically, the PM did not "hide his reality".

The comments are a spoiler for Congress which was optimistic that the massive show in Kolkata would help it position itself credibly in the polls that have otherwise turned bipolar between Trinamool Congress and BJP.
This also came after the letter writers, at a public rally in Jammu, expressed concern that Congress was weakening by the day. Sharma’s barb suggested that tensions between Congress and the G-23 may be coming to a boil. “It may explode if the leadership does not become inclusive and listen to dissenters who are being blocked by a coterie,” a letter writer said.

While Congress and Left announced a deal among themselves last month, the ISF emerged as a late entrant in the alliance talks as the former were encouraged that its presence would consolidate Muslim votes in favour of the combine. The two parties also put a condition that the ISF should not join hands with the AIMIM of Asaduddin Owaisi.

Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was quoted as saying, “We are in charge of a state and don’t taken any decision on our own without any permission.” It implied that the state unit was going by the nod from the headquarters. Interestingly, Congress and ISF have not held talks and only the Left has negotiated seats with Siddiqui.

The red flag from within Congress may hurt the party’s morale in Bengal and Assam as Sharma’s denunciation rings close to the campaign theme of BJP that Congress is partisan towards “minority communalists”.

It also came on a day Congress’s Bihar ally RJD, led by Tejashwi Yadav, junked the ‘grand alliance’ to throw its lot with Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and urged “Biharis” to vote for TMC.

While G-23 members refused to react on the issue, Punjab MP and dissenter Manish Tewari said, “My foremost objective is to defeat BJP. Like earlier, wherever the party asks me to campaign, I will be more than eager and willing to do so.”

The back-to-back comments from Azad and Sharma triggered unease in the dissenters’ bloc even as Congress wrestled with how to react to the developments. A senior letter-writer said negotiations with “minority or majority communalists” could be questioned but “the timing was bad and could not be supported”.

Source URL: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/elections/assembly-elections/west-bengal/g-23-leader-slams-congress-tie-up-with-isf/articleshow/81284200.cms

India:: Listen, Mister Muslim. You are rightly upset with the Ayodhya verdict as it puts faith above law

The Indian Express, November 14, 2019


Listen, Mister Muslim. You are rightly upset with the Ayodhya verdict as it puts faith above law
Let’s recognise our own complicity in becoming the convenient ‘Other’ for Hindu nationalists

Written by Javed Anand


The writer is general secretary, Muslims for Secular Democracy, and co-editor, ‘Communalism Combat’


The rigid, intransigent Islam that our ulema and political leadership continue to preach leaves us little space for manoeuvre or room to negotiate a respectable place for ourselves in a secular-democratic polity. (Representational/File)

Listen, Mister Muslim. You are rightly upset with the verdict of the Supreme Court on the Ayodhya land dispute as it puts faith above law. Not for the first time, secular India has let you down. But truth to tell, you too have let secular India down. In this zero sum game between the Indian state and you, it’s been advantage Hindutva all the way.
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This is not to rub salt in your wound. But to point out that Muslims as a community are guilty of the very same thing they are accusing the Supreme Court of: Pitching Shariah law against the Indian Constitution, faith against the law of the land. The rigid, intransigent Islam that our ulema and political leadership continue to preach leaves us little space for manoeuvre or room to negotiate a respectable place for ourselves in a secular-democratic polity. Such inflexibility is bound to land us in the ditch, again and again, be it on the question of a masjid, triple talaq, Muslim Personal Law in general, or the issue of population control.

It’s time for some honest introspection. Was it not us who took to the streets in 1985, protested aggressively against the apex court’s judgment in the Shah Bano case, insisted that Shariah law took precedence over the secular law of the land?

The then Congress government under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi capitulated and the result was the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. Faith triumphed over a secular law (Section 125 of the CrPC) and Muslims were euphoric. The consequence: Secular-minded Indians were outraged, while Hindutva organisations grabbed the opportunity to up the ante. If the law can be changed in deference to Muslim religious sentiments, what about Hindu religious sentiments? In a balancing act, the Rajiv government engineered the opening of the locks of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. Could it be, Mister Muslim, that in setting a dangerous precedent, we lost the “plot”, not on November 9, 2019 but way back in 1986?
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As the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi agitation snowballed, thanks to the ulema’s myopia, what should have remained a legal dispute over land turned into a dharam yudh between faiths, a conflict between Ram and Rahim. The militant “mandir wahin banayenge” war-cry of the “Ram Bhakts” was matched by the equally belligerent “once-a-mosque-always-a-mosque” posture of the Muslim leadership. It’s a position that the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) upholds even today. The leader of the All-India Majlis Ittehadul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), Asaduddin Owaisi, has recently reiterated: “A mosque belongs to Allah and no Muslim has any right to give or gift it away”. In Islamic Saudi Arabia any number of mosques have been demolished or relocated for road widening and other public purposes. But in secular India, it’s a different Islam.

The escalation of communal conflict well suited the designs of the Sangh Parivar in convincing more and more Hindus that “Babar ki aulad” are preventing the building of a temple at the birth place of Lord Ram. From two seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984, the BJP’s tally shot up to 85 seats in 1989 and 120 seats in 1991. This should have been a wake-up call for Muslims. But as riot after riot claimed more and more Muslim lives, the leadership remained blind to the reality that a state which failed to protect lives was unlikely to save a mosque.

Does anyone recall the statement of the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee a year or two before the demolition: “The mosque is sacred to Muslims, the spot is sacred to us Hindus as the janamsthan of Bhagwan Ram. I appeal to my Muslim brothers. We Hindus will respectfully lift the Babri Masjid brick by brick and re-build it at another spot. You let us build our Ram Mandir there.” The Muslim response: A mosque does not mean four walls but the land on which it stands. In other words, it’s not a question of law but a matter of faith.

Five months before the Babri masjid was demolished (December 1992), in an article published in the now defunct weekly Sunday Observer, yours truly had argued why in the interest of the minority community and the national interest, Muslims should unilaterally hand over the Babri Masjid, either to the president of the Indian republic or the Supreme Court. Let the chief custodians of secular India decide whatever they thought to be in the best interests of national unity and communal amity. The article reminded Muslims that the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, offered statutory protection against any future agitations concerning all other mosques in the country. In response, I got a mouthful from even secular Hindu friends who asserted: “The Babri Masjid is not just a property of Muslims. It is a symbol of secular India. Who are you to gift it away?”

We, Mister Muslim, lost the opportunity for winning Hindu goodwill by our gesture, arresting if not reversing the rising tide of militant Hindutva and strengthening secular forces. The outcome: For Muslims, the loss of an estimated 3,000 lives since then in the recurring communal flare-ups; for Hindu nationalists, Ayodhya proved to be the chariot to ride to power.

Fast forward to November 9, 2019. Yes, the Supreme Court’s verdict is disturbing. More disturbing is the fact that it was unanimous; not one of the five judges voiced a dissenting note. Even more disturbing, consider how it is that well before judgment day the Sangh Parivar had not the least doubt that the impending judgment would be in favour of Ram Mandir. How else does one understand their overnight switch from mandir wahin banayenge vow to an appeal to all Indians to “wholeheartedly support” the verdict, irrespective of which way it goes? Also, consider this: Most self-proclaimed secular parties are content with having expressed their respect for the verdict.

It’s time we realised, Mister Muslim, that our clinging to the ulema’s brand of Islam gives every conflict a Hindu-Muslim complexion when the ongoing battle is, in fact, between secular India and Hindu Rashtra. We mustn’t become the convenient “other” for the Hindu nationalists to hide their real agenda.

This article first appeared in the print edition on November 14, 2019 under the title ‘Listen, Mister Muslim’. The writer is convener, Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy and co-editor, Sabrang India online.

India: Homophobia of the clerics - Hindu, Muslim, Christian - upset with supreme court order of 6 sept 2018

Gay sex decriminalised: Clerics protest order, hint at moving court

"I want to make it very clear that homosexuality is against Islam and there is a whole chapter on Quran on this. If this becomes the norm, then 100 years later, humanity will be wiped out. It is against the very essence of nature,” Kamal Farooqui, a lawyer and a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board said

Written by Abantika Ghosh | New Delhi | Published: September 7, 2018
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/gay-sex-decriminalised-clerics-protest-order-hint-at-moving-court-5344015/

o o o

See also:

Reactions of the Apostolic Churches Alliance, a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and the Imam council are reported in India Today ->

"Homosexuality is an abomination as per the Bible. The act of sodomy, as per the Christian philosophy, faith, belief and sentiments of Christian religion as a whole is a most contemptuous sinful act," said Manoj V George, lawyer for Apostolic Churches Alliance set to file a petition opposing the demand to scrap section 377.
AIMPLB member Sayyed Qasim Rasool Ilyasi, told Mail Today: "We will become a party in the case and oppose the plea. Homosexuality is unethical and is against all religious faiths. If it is legalised, it will create problems in society."
Echoing the same sentiments, Maqsood Ul Hasan Qasmi, President of Imam Council of India "After some years we may find some people who want to do animal sex. Do we think it is their right to choose what they want? Will it be correct if some people demand to legalise it?

source: https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/sects-unite-to-save-section-377-1282317-2018-07-11

Here is a tweet from the official twitter handle of All India Muslim Personal Law Board which says" Legalizing homosexuality is against Indian values and culture. No religion allows immorality. The government must pass a bill to protect the rights of women as they are the major victims of legalised homosexuality" https://twitter.com/AIMPLB_Official/status/1038083943629824002

The Hindu Mahasabha has also reacted adversely: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/ulemas-hindu-mahasabha-fume-at-sc-verdict-on-section-377/articleshow/65710964.cms

India: Anand Kochukudy on ABVP-OBC Front alliance . . . Ambedkar, Marx, Maududi

The Wire
Ambedkar, Marx, Maududi and Mainstream Politics

By Anand Kochukudy on 07/11/2017 

[. . .]
Ambedkar and Maududi cannot be part of the same tea party
[. . .]
Now, the question of identities that are part of subaltern political movements need to be analysed further. Muslim identity politics has a unique relevance in contemporary politics – especially when it’s the Muslim identity that is being targeted. Post independence, 28 of the 73 All India Muslim League members of the Constituent Assembly stayed back in India, and the party was revived as the Indian Union Muslim League, to address community issues and to ensure the electoral representation of the largely poorer Muslims who stayed back in the Indian Union. But post the 1980s, the League has been relegated to Kerala and pockets of Tamil Nadu as part of multiparty coalitions. But not all Muslim political movements are based on identity, when viewed through the subaltern political prism.
The Maududian interpretation of Islam and the consequent formation of Jamaat-e-Islami in 1941 is a theo-political movement where the ultimate aim is formation of an Islamic nation. Theo- politics, be it from minority or majority is something a democratic society cannot afford to not oppose. The Students Islamic Organization has tried since its inception in 1956 to influence campuses, infiltrate academia and muster popular support among Muslims which has not made much headway all these years; just like their parent organisation Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. They were against the idea of their members cooperating with a non-Islamic democratic system and had requested their associates and members to resign from government jobs in the past decades.
But in 2011, the same organisation floated a political wing named ‘Welfare party of India’. SIO is probably the only student organisation which has protested decriminalising homosexuality in India and their country-wide protests on this issue have been documented on their website. The gender discrimination of the organisation is a brilliantly hidden fact. When the organisation enters comparatively progressive university campuses, they pretend to stand for gender equality. But when it comes to campuses where orthodox ideas prevail, a separate faction for girls called the ‘Girls Islamic Organization’ gets floated.
From gender to LGBT issues, the Theo-political movement of Jamaat-e-Islami has consistently exposed their conservative and regressive mindset which can potentially alienate the Muslim community further from the mainstream.
Dalit movements should introspect if they need to share a platform with theo-political organisations that can discredit their just cause. Somehow, the SIO in the campus succeeded in conveying the idea that ‘any stand against them is tantamount to Islamophobia’. On the other hand, the student community has failed to distinguish between Muslim Students’ Federation, which is an organisation practicing identity politics and the SIO, which is a theo-political Islamist organisation. It is important to distinguish Islamist politics from Muslim identity politics. [. . .]



 FULL TEXT HERE: https://thewire.in/195024/ambedkar-marx-maududi-mainstream-politics/

India: Author Taslima Nasreen sent back from Aurangabad airport after protests

The Indian Express

Taslima Nasreen sent back from Aurangabad airport after protests

Protesters had also gathered outside a hostel where Nasreen was to stay during her three-day visit. Police said they had come to know that the writer was planning to visit the world heritage sites of Ajanta and Ellora besides other tourist spots in Aurangabad

By: PTI | Aurangabad | Updated: July 30, 2017  

Controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was sent back from the airport in Aurangabad to Mumbai after protests by a group of people against her visit to the city, police said on Sunday. Nasreen landed at the Chikal thana Airport last evening by a flight from Mumbai. Police stopped the author from stepping out of the airport, where a crowd had gathered shouting slogans like “Taslima Go Back”. Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone-II) Rahul Shrirame said Nasreen was sent back to Mumbai by the next flight to avoid any “law and order problem” in this city in central Maharashtra. [. . .]

FULL TEXT HERE: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/taslima-nasreen-sent-back-from-aurangabad-airport-after-protests-4773931/

 

UK: Stop fretting over religious sensitivities. We must push hard against Islamists | Sara Khan

The Guardian - 11 June 2017 

Stop fretting over religious sensitivities. We must push hard against Islamists

Sara Khan

In this time of political uncertainty, we can be certain about one issue. The battle against Islamist extremism is one we are losing. News of 23,000 jihadis living in Britain, each considered to pose at least a “residual risk”, indicates the breathtaking scale of the challenge facing us. The horse, as they say, has well and truly bolted.
We need to learn lessons from previous mistakes, including our comatose response to growing religious fundamentalism. Yet the truth is we remain blind to the facts. With our liberal blessings, extremist preachers are free to promote their hatred, virtually unchallenged. Anjem Choudary radicalised hundreds, if not thousands of Muslims freely over 20 years. As a result, he influenced more than 100 Britons to carry out or attempt to carry out terrorist attacks at home and abroad.
We defended the right of extremists to free speech in the belief that the most effective way of undermining them was for us to counter their speech. This was nice in theory; there was, however, one rather large problem. Apart from a handful of people, no one did counter them. And those who did were promptly labelled “Islamophobes.”
Fully exploiting the uncontested space we provided them, extremists promoted their supremacist, hate-filled ideology to thousands of Muslims on satellite channels, through social media, on campuses and community events, day in, day out. In the battle of ideas, deconstructing their ideological world view was then and remains now one of our greatest failures. And fail we did – collectively, as Muslim institutions, human rights organisations, anti-racist groups and governments.
While the Muslim Council of Britain perfected the art of issuing press statements, it did nothing to push back on such poisonous teachings. For 10 years, my organisation Inspire, in an attempt to build resilience to extremism in Muslim families, taught theological counter-narratives to extremist ideology. The response I heard from hundreds of Muslim mothers was the same. No one has taught us this before and no one has taught our children it either. What was apparent is that the weak “community” defence system would not be able to hold back the tidal wave of extremist propaganda.
As extremists continue to radicalise people, we, however, are still flapping our hands over what we even define as extremism. Extremism has never been just about violence. Inciting hatred, discrimination and supremacist ideals for political, religious or ideological causes should be considered extreme in a 21st-century Britain which aspires to establish a culture based on equality, human rights and a pluralistic outlook. Yet thousands of videos of extremists such as Abu Haleema who seek to radicalise remain online.
Our inability to recognise the ideological nature of the beast, in particular Salafist, Islamist and Barelvi-inspired extremism, meant we never fully understood who the key extremist groups, websites and preachers were. We lack the essential insight into the activism of these groups and their influence among British Muslims.
Instead of recognising the diverse picture, we blindly continue to lump all 3 million Muslims – the good, bad and ugly – all under the mythical banner of a “Muslim community”. This serves the interests not of the ordinary Muslim, but of the extremists who hide behind this same banner. As a result, we continue to legitimise the voices we should be calling out.
Take Sky News for example. Last week, it invited Dilly Hussain of the Islamist-run website 5Pillars to take part in a discussion on how we should tackle Islamist extremism. Hussain has expressed his support for key 20th-century jihadi ideologues including Sayyid Qutb and Abdullah Azzam. Qutb’s book Milestones became the blueprint for modern-day Islamist extremist ideologies and influenced Osama bin Laden. Azzam is a pivotal ideologue in shaping the al-Qaida network. Yet despite this, you may want to ask why is it 5Pillars has more than 184,000 likes on Facebook alone? Yet here was Sky News asking an Islamist sympathiser how we should tackle Islamist extremism.
So what do we need to do ? Inevitably, a huge responsibility falls on Muslim faith leaders and institutions in our country. Statements condemning terror attacks do not reduce the Islamist threat we face, nor address the challenge of 23,000 jihadis. They have a religious obligation to build resilience in teaching young Muslims theological counter-narratives to extremist ideology, while promoting a contextualised understanding of Islam in the UK and amplifying such teachings to the masses both in the online and offline space.
We must provide platforms for young people to air their grievances, whether they are concerns around anti-Muslim prejudice or foreign policy and challenge wild anti-western conspiracy theories. It is vital that we hammer home the message that violence and terrorism, no matter what grievances the terrorists claim to hold, is never justified in Islam. Crucially, Muslim activists and scholars must weed out the extremists in our midst who justify their beliefs in the “name of Islam.” As one scholar said last week, it’s time we #CallEmOut.
Second, we need to start investing in grassroots Muslim counter-extremism organisations. At the moment, these lack essential funding and resources. Philanthropies and charities have a social responsibility to support Muslims who are on the frontline. A disastrous combination of muddled thinking about political correctness and a risk- averse outlook has acted as an obstacle.
Government must do more to explain the threat emanating from Islamist terrorism and build trust among Muslims so we work together in countering the extremists. This work should be supplemented with broader government strategies that empower communities through programmes of engagement, inclusion and integration.
Investing and reinvigorating a civil society movement based on our shared values is desperately needed to push back against the extremists. This requires all of us to defend our values over and above political correctness or religious sensibilities, to help build the united Britain we all want. We have already lost too much ground to Islamist extremists. We will continue to do so unless we urgently step up to the mark.
Sara Khan is author of The Battle for British Islam: Reclaiming Muslim Identity from Extremism, and director of the counter-extremism organisation Inspire. @wewillinspire.

Kashmir: Inspiration for jihadi resistance in the Valley is moving to ever-younger minds (David Devadas)

firstpost.com - April 12, 2017

 

The little seven-year-old looks cute, but he sounds pretty determined when he responds to a question about what he wants to be. 'Mujahid (soldier),' he says firmly. When asked about what he will do in jihad, he asserts that he will fight the Indian Army.

When one of those present asks if he can recite a poem or song, he bashfully cocks his head to one side, rubs an eye with the back of one hand and runs the fingers of the other hand through his tousled hair. Then, prodded by his neighbours who are my hosts, he readily gives the performance he is evidently known for in the village. He stands up and raises each pheran-clad hand in turn, index finger outstretched, while reciting a litany of slogans about Burhan, azaadi, Geelani, Islam, bullets, blood, and fearlessness.
Adolescents sitting against the wall look indulgently on. They have pelted stones, and will again. An eleven-year old talks of pellets, shells, bullets, fearlessness and freedom. India oppresses us, he says. His friend talks about his father being beaten and his grandfather being tortured when security forces questioned them about the hideouts of militants — before he was born.
An intense, handsome neighbour in his late teens comes in to talk to us. He is a zealous stone-pelter, often going to Srinagar’s Jamia mosque to pelt after the Friday prayers. He is also strongly motivated to resist — though less willing to die than the seven-year-old. He would have taken up arms, he says, if he had not been the only son of his parents. The views of older residents, including a preacher and two teachers, are all far more moderate.
Younger resisters

Young students express a desire to fight the war against oppression. PTI

Over the course of more than 24 hours in this village, Bogam in the heart of Kulgam district, it becomes obvious that the will to resist has traveled down age categories to even younger Kashmiris than the teenagers who were on the streets in 2016.
Bogam, to be sure, is one of the most radical villages in all of Kashmir. It claimed and buried the body of Abu Qasim, the Pakistani Laskhar-e-Taiba militant who was killed in November 2015. The Pakistan flag is painted all over the village walls.
As elsewhere in the Valley, the common perception in Bogam is that Kashmiris are being attacked and killed out of malicious intent against Muslims, rather than in response to insurgency.
Militancy, stone-pelting and other demonstrations are seen as responses rather than causes. Actions of the state are viewed as illegitimate; the responses of the youth are valourised as heroic.
When we first arrive in the village, a large knot of residents gathers at the main chowk to tell us of oppression and torture. One man says he was stripped, beaten, and made to urinate on an electric heater. Chillies were applied to cuts near his genitals, and behind, he adds. Some people shy away from meeting us.
Changed radicalism
The next afternoon, we trudge through hailstones in snow, and slush deep enough to enter shoes and socks, to meet a Hurriyat-affiliated preacher in a nearby village. He speaks in hackneyed slogan-like phrases, unable to explain or argue beyond 'have you read any books on Kashmir?' But he is frequently invited to preach at mosques across south Kashmir. He evidently gives rousing sermons about jihad, oppression of Muslims, and resistance.
This is, at one level, a commentary on shifts in the intellectual discourse in a place that has been a hotbed of various kinds of radicalism. Half a century ago, there were ultra-Leftists in Bogam. And one evidently very well read academic still talks of his 'progressive' ideas and values.
Indeed, the state’s lone CPM legislator is from the next village, Tarigam. But now, he can only visit the village by day, with a security detail.
Students at the school run by the Jamaat-e-Islami at Tarigam are full of the will to fight a war against oppression. They talk of being inspired by Burhan Wani, Abu Qasim, and the recent pan-Islamist call of Burhan’s successor Zakir 'Musa.'
The future, it seems clear, will be bleakly violent.

India: Gorakhpur and the Ghost of Gangadhar Adhikari (Rahul Pandita)

(Open Magazine - 24 March 2017)

by Rahul Pandita

Whether liberals like it or not, the story of Hindu consolidation is not over yet

AFTER YOGI ADITYANATH was declared Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister, his supporters and closet supporters have been arguing that he deserves a chance. That, he is getting already, whether some people like it or not. On social media, his supporters have mauled even right-wingers who have expressed their disagreement with this decision; they see Adityanath’s shift from Gorakhpur to Lucknow as the new dawn of militant Hindutva.

On his part, Adityanath has said in a statement in the Lok Sabha that his government will uphold law and order and that there will be no discrimination against anyone. But it is clear that there will be an assertion on Hindutva lines even if he ensures that no communal riots break out in the state. His guidelines to the police include strict action against cow slaughter, while the sealing of some slaughterhouses is underway. The new government is allocating 25 acres of land for setting up a Ramayana museum in Ayodhya.
Unlike his predecessors, Adityanath will have no use of the symbolism of skullcaps and chequered Arab scarves. A day after he was sworn in as Chief Minister, priests from the Gorakhnath math conducted a special puja at his official residence, painting swastikas with vermillion on both sides of the main gate. This is what his supporters expected and this is what he has professed. Those who stand in opposition to Adityanath may put up video clip after clip of his anti-Muslim and anti-women remarks on social media. But those who are happy with his ascension to UP’s throne see this as a special attribute and not a handicap.
This mandate of 2017 in UP is different from the one Atal Bihari Vajpayee got in 1998 or 1999; it is not even like 2014 when Narendra Modi won a clear majority. In 2014, people voted for Modi for different reasons. Some voted for him as a mascot of Hindutva. Some voted for him in the name of development; some stood in long queues because they wanted a Prime Minister ‘as strong as Indira Gandhi’. In 2014, the vote was overwhelmingly for Modi, rather than the BJP. It is the same this year in UP, except that a clear consolidation of Hindu votes has happened this time, putting the BJP at an advantage which it is likely to be replicated in other elections. The 2017 vote is not for bridges or hospitals, but for Hindutva. This election has also exposed the implausibility of a Dalit-Muslim alliance. Whereas a significant number of Dalits and other backwards castes voted for Modi, it is also an election where the Muslim vote has become irrelevant. The BJP’s pro-poor schemes like Ujjwala (for LPG gas connections) may have worked to Modi’s advantage, but the people who voted for him have mostly done so on the ‘shamshaan versus kabristaan’ narrative of cremation grounds and graveyards. And an obvious embodiment of that mandate is Yogi Adityanath.
Why has it happened? It is pertinent to go back to what the scholar Bhagwan Josh calls the nationalist core of Indian politics. In an article published in The Times of India on August 4th, 1993, Josh argues that ‘the historical process of the formation of the Indian nation and nation-state is structured through nationalism—a nationalism which more or less overlaps with the Hindu cultural internality… a pragmatic form of politics which does not take nationalism as its point of departure would always remain provincial and factional.’ Josh writes that the Congress party has had an encompassing vision of nationalism over what he calls the three codes of mass consciousness: caste, class and community. Barring Congress, other parties would use one of these codes to align themselves with a group of people. The communists, for example, use the class code, while parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party use caste. The BJP, which was largely seen as aligned with the (Hindu) community code, has now been able to break into other codes. In the UP elections, the party has made inroads into Mayawati’s vote base. The RSS-BJP combine has worked among Dalits and backwards castes, making many of them a part of the Hindu umbrella. Many among UP’s Nishads (a community of boatmen), for example, have been co-opted with the story of Kewat who helped Lord Rama cross the River Ganga in his boat. While Ujjwala is a scheme any Left government would have been proud of, demonetisation has surprisingly worked in favour of the Modi Government. While the poor were badly hit, the message that it managed to convey to them is that it has hit the rich more and will eventually benefit the have-nots. As far as the community is concerned, Adityanath offers the best key to its code.
The BJP’s ideology, of course, appeals to those who have a belief in Savarkarite militarism. But why have so many liberal Hindus, the type who are heard talking about building a hospital rather than a temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, also taken refuge under Modi’s umbrella? Some answers may lie in a recent article in the Financial Times written by the British commentator David Goodhart in which he cites reasons why he broke up with his ‘liberal London tribe’. Goodhart divides British society into largely two sections, the Anywheres ‘who value autonomy and fluidity’ and the Somewheres who are more rooted and ‘prioritise group attachments and security’. Both worldviews have a right to exist, but, as Goodhart says, ‘on the so-called ‘security and identity’ issues that have loomed large in recent years, they have created a dismayingly large gulf in British society.’ This is also true of India currently. Islamist extremism and the threat of terrorism have not remained confined to Kashmir. The turning of a blind eye to Muslim fundamentalism, as practised by the Congress party and followed zealously by the Left and by Lohiaites, and their utter disregard of the Hindu identity have led to a large chasm that the Modi-led BJP has effectively filled. As more and more Hindus think their interests are being threatened, they are gravitating towards a more assertive form of Hindutva.

The over-ground sympathisers of Maoists have organised several events where they openly supported Kashmir’s call for azaadi, and embraced the pro-Pakistan radical Islamist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani

It is easy to dismiss this fear by asking how a Hindu can feel threatened in a Hindu-majority country. But as Goodhart writes: ‘an emotionally mature liberalism must also accept that white majorities, not just minorities, in western societies have ethnic attachments too…’ Goodhart is speaking in very particular terms. But the crisis that skewed liberalism has perpetuated in India is far more sinister. And it begins long ago, even before India’s independence, with a man named Gangadhar Adhikari.
IN 1942, THE Communist Party of India (CPI) passed a resolution in favour of the creation of Pakistan. It endorsed the formation of Pakistan as a front against British colonialism. The resolution was based on a thesis propagated by one of the party’s senior leaders, Gangadhar Adhikari. Advocating a Balkanisation of India, the Adhikari thesis said that India was never a united country and that the idea of ‘one nation, one people, one language’ never existed at any point in the country’s history. Adhikari advocated a declaration of rights that would ‘give to the Muslims wherever they are in an overwhelming majority in a contiguous territory which is their homeland, the right to form their autonomous states and even to separate if they so desire’. It was just a reflection of Stalin’s definition of a nation, which, as the historian Ishtiaq Ahmed has pointed out, Stalin ensured remains just an exercise on paper. The historian Dilip Simeon has pointed at the CPI’s ‘erratic conflation of nation, nationality, sub-regional and regional identity and its refusal to theorise communal politics and its resultant decision to support what it called the ‘democratic core’ or the ‘just essence’ of the Pakistan demand’.
After 1942, the Left’s romance with Islamist movements continued and became more brazen. It became a malaise that Goodhart distinctly recognises when he refers to the liberal instincts of ‘the far greater concern for suffering in distant lands than just around the corner, the blank incomprehension of religious or national feeling and the disdain for the ordinary people we were meant to champion’. So, while the Left would take out rallies in support of the Palestinian cause, it completely ignored the plight of Kashmiri Pandits who were brutalised as a minority in Kashmir in 1990 and hounded out of their homeland. A veteran Kashmiri communist, Rishi Dev went to the communist leader HKS Surjeet to talk to him about the plight of Pandits; Surjeet dismissed his concerns by saying: Aisi baatein hoti rehti hain (these things happen).
On the Left’s mistake, both in India and abroad, of understanding political Islam, the scholar Sumanta Banerjee writes: ‘[the Left] hopes to conflate the Islamic ideological opposition to the western neocolonial order (an opposition which is rooted to a great extent to the Islamic feudal and patriarchal resistance against democratic and social reforms, which they brand as ‘western’), with their own secular and progressive idea of anti-imperialism. That such an alliance, born of immediate expediency, can never work for long should be evident from past experiences. But some among the Left (and also liberal bourgeois human rights activists) continue today to nurture the same illusion.’ While the mainstream Left kept on committing mistakes, the extreme Left took it to an audacious level by aligning itself with the Taliban after the US offensive. “We feel that the Islamic upsurge should not be opposed as it is basically anti-US and anti-imperialist in nature. We, therefore, want it to glow,” said the slain Maoist leader, Kishenji, in a newspaper interview.
In her book The Taste of Ashes on the aftermath of totalitarianism in eastern Europe, Marci Shore refers to Vaclav Havel’s samizdat essay of 1978, ‘The power of the powerless,’ in which he wrote of a greengrocer who hangs a board every morning in his shop window that reads: ‘Workers of the world unite.’ The greengrocer, says Marci, did not believe this message, the words meant nothing to him; nonetheless he obliged the communist regime by displaying the sign. In India, since communists were not in a position to impose an iron curtain, they tried to impose a social iron curtain of sorts. More than caring about poor workers and other marginalised sections of society, one became a true communist by hating his country, expressing disdain for gods and Hindu religious and cultural beliefs and standing in solidarity with Muslim sub-nationalism and fundamentalism in Kashmir and elsewhere.
In September 2009, Maoist ideologue Kobad Ghandy was arrested in Delhi. It created a buzz among middle-class folks in big cities who were mostly oblivious of what the Maoist movement was largely about. Since Ghandy received a lot of media coverage, people began to show an interest in the happenings in Bastar. Many felt sympathetic towards Ghandy and the movement he espoused. Here was a man who, by virtue of his background and education, could have become anything anywhere in the world, but had chosen to ‘fight for the rights of Adivasis’. Before this sympathy could change the narrative, the over-ground sympathisers of Maoists organised public event after event in Delhi and other cities where they openly supported Kashmir’s call for azaadi, sharing a dais with and embracing the pro-Pakistan radical Islamist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani. A few months later, 76 security personnel were mowed down in Tadmetla in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district and the whole thing was over.
In her book, Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights, Meredith Tax exposes how the Left chose a Taliban militant, Moazzam Begg, to highlight the issue of torture of prisoners by the US in Guantanamo. In 2010, Amnesty International invited Begg to propagate his views. One of Amnesty’s unit heads, Gita Sahgal, went public protesting against this move to partner with an Islamic fundamentalist. She was suspended, and Amnesty called its decision to let Begg use its platform as ‘defensive jihad’. In India, Amnesty is now issuing statements that Adityanath should publicly retract his statements against Muslims. In the process, it has exposed itself as an organisation with double standards and has lost its relevance in the human rights discourse. It is this hypocrisy and blindness to one stream of extremism that is giving rise to the likes of Donald Trump. When a historian like Faisal Devji suggests (in an interview to The Guardian’s John Sutherland) that “if one wants a reference point for al-Qaida, some other movement that channelises the same impulses for similar reasons, look no further than environmentalism,” then you know how deep-rooted this problem is and how so many Somewheres are behaving and voting in a particular way.
There is no doubt that the new Hindutva assertion poses several problems. The biggest among them is that a section of people who have gotten emboldened by recent victories and are turning into vigilantes—the case of the Jaipur hotel being one such example. As Pratap Bhanu Mehta points out in a recent piece on UP’s Chief Minister: if Adityanath is indeed the popular choice, then the crisis of Indian democracy deepens.
That may be so. But Adityanath is indeed the new reality—a reality that will have more layers in the coming days. This is New India. How it plays out is another matter.

India: Freedom of irreligion & killing of an athiest in Coimbatore (scroll.in / Ipsita Chakravarty)

scroll.in - 22 March 2017

Freedom of irreligion

by Ipsita Chakravarty

Last week, 31-year-old H Farook, scrap dealer, member of the Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam and self-professed atheist, was hacked to death in Coimbatore. The police believe it was because he refused to take down a WhatsApp group on atheism that had 400 members from several districts. His family say he received threatening phone calls for Facebook posts speaking against god, caste and religion. Farook’s death would appear to confirm that, in India, atheism is the faith that dare not speak its name.
While religious fanaticism is on the rise across the world, atheists are also a growing population. In communist China, there are between 40% and 49% who do not believe in god, in Norway, apparently the happiest country in the world, there are more non-believers than believers and in stridently secular France, about a fifth of the population is atheist. Of course, in the United States, where religious conservatism is still strong, those who identified as atheist or agnostic was only 7% in 2014, but even this number is up from 4% in 2007. In India, according to the 2011 Census, about 29 lakh people, or just 0.24% of the population, were catgorised under “religion not stated”. Of these, only 33,000 identified as atheist, or those who do not believe in god. The rest of the number includes rationalists, or those who would base their actions and opinions on reason and knowledge rather than emotion or religious belief, and others who did not want to identify with any particular organised religion. According to other international surveys, the number of people who do not believe in god is higher, ranging from 3% to 6.6% for the population.
Atheists and rationalists now form a small, embattled minority, whose rights and beliefs are the target of violence and largely unrecognised by law. Indian secularism is so rapt in the fraught debate on freedom of religion that freedom of irreligion is yet to enter the public imagination. Yet, over the last few years, as the tide of religious fundamentalism rises, they have come under frenzied attack. Three rationalists, Govind Pansare, MMK Kalburgi and Narendra Dabholkar, have been allegedly murdered by Hindu extremist groups but the trials in these cases are barely inching along. There is also active popular resistance to the discussion or practice of such beliefs – in Mathura, Hindu and Muslim groups came together in violent protest against a “Nastik Sammelan” earlier this year.
The courts, on their part, have given delivered conflicting judgments over the years. A school teacher from Nashik won a case against his employers, who had withheld his dues because he did not join his hands in prayer. In 2012, a sessions court in Thane ruled that a person would have to legally identify himself as part of a religion, no matter what his personal beliefs were. But in 2014, the Bombay High Court held that the government could not force an individual to declare a religion in any document or form. Perhaps the ambiguity exists because no official recognition of atheism or irreligion exists in India. In December, the US introduced protections for those who identified as atheist into a bill on religious freedoms. India, a country where such beliefs attract actual violence and the threat of death, should also consider a similar law.

The Big Scroll

TA Ameerudheen speaks to the family of H Farook and leaders of the political party to which he belonged.
Shoaib Daniyal observes that though the 2011 Census showed a rise in the number of people who did not identify with any religion, India is no country for atheists.

Bangladesh: Muslim Right Protest over Goddess of of Justice Statue

BBC News - 24 February 2017

Bangladesh Muslims protest against justice goddess statue

Image caption Protesters say the statue contravenes Islamic teaching

Thousands of supporters of a conservative Islamist group have protested in Bangladesh against a statue of the goddess of justice erected outside the supreme court.

The protest in the capital, Dhaka, demanded its removal.

The demonstrators say the figure, a variation on the Greek goddess Themis but in a sari, goes against Islam.

The protest is another sign of tension between Islamic conservatism and liberal values in Bangladesh.

Backers of the conservative Islamist group, Hefazat-e-Islam, gathered outside the Baitul Mokarram mosque after Friday prayers, carrying placards and promising further protests across the country if the statue was not removed.
Idolatry

The protesters say the figure, erected in December and holding the familiar sword and scales of justice in her hands, amounts to idolatry.

"Statues or any kind of idols are completely banned in Islam," one demonstrator told the BBC.

"There is no place for a statue in our religion. So Muslims can't allow a statue in the Supreme Court premises."
Image copyright supremecourt.gov.bd
Image caption The statue was installed last December

There is growing tension in Bangladeshi society, and politics, between Islamic conservatives and more moderate, secular voices who want to defend pluralism and free speech, said the BBC South Asia Editor Jill McGivering.

The protesters' demands present the government with a dilemma at a sensitive time, she added.

Evidence of tension has come in the form of a series of murders of liberal writers and attacks by Islamist militants in recent years.