Renting a riot and fatwas
Extremist
clerics have misled Muslims by promoting bias against Muslim women with a
consistency that is the prerogative of a closed mind. They have done their best
to separate Muslims from modernity; now they want to divorce Muslims from the
modern economy. This is a heinous travesty, since Islam rescued its first
communities from the grip of jahiliya, or obscurantism.
Dramatic displays of silliness will, but naturally, provoke
headlines, but they will not travel. No Muslim is going to resign from an
insurance company, or surrender his or her LIC policy because of a marginal
fatwa from Deoband. The faithful have more resilience than some of their
self-appointed preachers believe. -- M J Akbar
By M J
Akbar
17 May 2010
The choice is admittedly difficult, but which
of these three is the biggest threat to the social stability of India: greed,
hatred or stupidity? Our polity is less vulnerable than our social compact,
although the first can, logically, only be a manifestation of the second. But
the former is structured in legislation and held together by institutions that
have won support across diversity.
Social harmony is always under
threat from human excess and bile, both of which escape the confines of reason
with a?reprehensible consistency.
There are some specialists who
go the extra mile and combine two of the three elemental dangers. Pramod
Muthalik, chief of the Sri Ram Sena, is a standard-bearer of this breed; hatred
is insufficient as a spur, he needs the greasy lubrication of hard cash as well.
Such men must hate God even more than they hate men: why else would they name
their parties, designed for evil objectives, after a God?
Hindu belief places Lord Rama at
the pinnacle of idealism; Iqbal, who was later adopted as the poet-laureate of
the idea of Pakistan (although Pakistan was born much after he died), called
Lord Rama Imam-e-Hind.
It is only when you cannot
differentiate between good and evil that violence becomes your ethic and hatred
your ideology; when you have obliterated humanity from your consciousness you
have also eliminated any understanding of divinity. This warp of the essence is
not confined to any faith.
Terrorists who butcher
innocents, but name their outfits after the Prophet of Islam are exactly the
same. Any Muslim will add salle ala alaihe wa sallam after mentioning the name
of Prophet Muhammad. It means: “peace be upon him”. We wish the Prophet peace
precisely because peace is the highest ideal in our world. Peace, salaam, is the
ineradicable element of public discourse, whether to garrulous friend or
monosyllabic, minimalist stranger. Only irreparably twisted minds besmirch the
name of the Prophet by associating it with terrorism.
The world, as has been said with
too long a sigh, is what it is, but that does not mean that we have to accept it
as it is. We can take some consolation in the fact that there is broad consensus
against hate-fuelled violence, because it is clearly the greatest destabiliser.
This consensus weakens considerably when we confront greed or stupidity. Both
seem to have rather more supporters than common sense might bargain
for.
There is even a theory that
greed is good because it is the Rolls Royce engine of growth. It is hardly
surprising that such notions are perpetuated by grabbers, who claim
respectability on the basis of a partnership between greed and agreed. Evidence
to the contrary is building up at every level, individual, social, corporate,
national. When greed infects the soul of corporate power then it can cause
havoc, whether in a hyped-up cricket tournament or the New York Stock Exchange.
Greed is eating away the capital of capitalism, eroding the basis on which a
successful contemporary economy has been created. Greed is regressive,
self-destructive, and yet has been turned into the holy ?grail of
progress.
Face it: it is the greed of a
limited slab of India that condemns 80 per cent of our country to unacceptable
levels of poverty, stark hunger and hopelessness. Each time the well-off look
into a mirror, they will find one reason for the rise of Naxalism. The
indifference of haves is the principal inspiration for the violence of the
have-nots.
Greed has a loyal friend,
hypocrisy.
The most acceptable sin is
clearly stupidity. It is possible that jokes have lent a slightly droll nuance
to stupidity. Its dangers should not be underestimated, particularly when
stupidity is harnessed to any interpretation of faith. This week’s evidence lies
in some of the fatwas that are consuming the news cycle in this dull, post-?
Parliament season.
A fatwa, it should be clarified,
is only the opinion of a cleric whose academic credentials are considered
acceptable; it is not a law passed through a legislature and backed by the
authority of the state. Still, even if an absurd fatwa damages one home, it must
be repudiated.
Extremist clerics have misled
Muslims by promoting bias against Muslim women with a consistency that is the
prerogative of a closed mind. They have done their best to separate Muslims from
modernity; now they want to divorce Muslims from the modern economy. This is a
heinous travesty, since Islam rescued its first communities from the grip of
jahiliya, ?or obscurantism.
Dramatic displays of silliness
will, but naturally, provoke headlines, but they will not travel. No Muslim is
going to resign from an insurance company, or surrender his or her LIC policy
because of a marginal fatwa from Deoband. The faithful have more resilience than
some of their self-appointed preachers believe.
The fringe, violent, greedy or
stupid, will continue to damage, but will never destroy India.
MJ Akbar is Editor of The Sunday
Guardian, published from Delhi, and India on Sunday, published from
London.
Source: Khaleej
Times
9:31 PM
Sultan Shahin
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