Britain’s decision to bar an
influential Muslim cleric from entering the country underscores the failure of
Indian secularism…. The good doctor’s views run the gamut from nutty to vile, so
it’s hard to pinpoint which of them has landed him in trouble. For instance,
though Dr. Naik has condemned terrorism, at times he also appears to condone it.
“If he [Osama bin Laden] is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him,” he
said in a widely watched 2007 YouTube diatribe. “If he is terrorizing the
terrorists, if he is terrorizing America the terrorist, the biggest terrorist, I
am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist.”
…unlike
Hindu bigots, such as the World Hindu Council’s Praveen Togadia, whose fiercest
critics tend to be fellow Hindus, radical Muslims go largely unchallenged. The
vast majority of Indian Muslims remain moderate, but their leaders are often
fundamentalists and the community has done a poor job of policing its own ranks.
Moreover, most of India’s purportedly secular intelligentsia remains loath to
criticize Islam, even in its most radical form, lest this be interpreted as
sympathy for Hindu nationalism. Unless this changes, unless Indians find the
ability to criticize a radical Islamic preacher such as Dr. Naik as robustly as
they would his Hindu equivalent, the idea of Indian secularism will remain
deeply flawed. -- Sadanad
Dhume
By
Sadanad Dhume
June
20, 2010
If
you’re looking for a snapshot of India’s hapless response to radical Islam, then
look no further than Bombay-based cleric Dr. Zakir Naik. In India, the
44-year-old Dr. Naik—a medical doctor by training and a televangelist by
vocation—is a widely respected figure, feted by newspapers and gushed over by
television anchors. The British, however, want no part of him. On Friday, the
newly elected Conservative-led government announced that it would not allow Dr.
Naik to enter Britain to deliver a series of lectures. According to Home
Secretary Theresa May, the televangelist has made “numerous comments” that are
evidence of his “unacceptable behavior.”
The
good doctor’s views run the gamut from nutty to vile, so it’s hard to pinpoint
which of them has landed him in trouble. For instance, though Dr. Naik has
condemned terrorism, at times he also appears to condone it. “If he [Osama bin
Laden] is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him,” he said in a widely
watched 2007 YouTube diatribe. “If he is terrorizing the terrorists, if he is
terrorizing America the terrorist, the biggest terrorist, I am with him. Every
Muslim should be a terrorist.”
Dr.
Naik recommends the death penalty for homosexuals and for apostasy from the
faith, which he likens to wartime treason. He calls for India to be ruled by the
medieval tenets of Shariah law. He supports a ban on the construction of
non-Muslim places of worship in Muslim lands and the Taliban’s bombing of the
Bamiyan Buddhas. He says revealing clothes make Western women “more susceptible
to rape.” Not surprisingly, Dr. Naik believes that Jews “control America” and
are the “strongest in enmity to Muslims.”
Of
course, every faith has its share of cranks; and, arguably, India has more than
its share. But it’s impossible to relegate Dr. Naik to Indian Islam’s fringe.
Earlier this year, the Indian Express listed him as the country’s 89th most
powerful person, ahead of Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen, eminent lawyer
and former attorney general Soli Sorabjee, and former Indian Premier League
cricket commissioner Lalit Modi. Dr. Naik’s satellite TV channel, Peace TV,
claims a global viewership of up to 50 million people in 125 countries. On
YouTube, a search for Dr. Naik turns up more than 36,000
hits.
Nobody
accuses Dr. Naik of direct involvement in terrorism, but those reportedly drawn
to his message include Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan-American arrested last year
for planning suicide attacks on the New York subway; Rahil Sheikh, accused of
involvement in a series of train bombings in Bombay in 2006; and Kafeel Ahmed,
the Bangalore man fatally injured in a failed suicide attack on Glasgow airport
in 2007.
Nonetheless,
when the doctor appears on a mainstream Indian news channel, his interviewers
tend to be deferential. Senior journalist and presenter Shekhar Gupta
breathlessly introduced his guest last year as a “rock star of televangelism”
who teaches “modern Islam” and “his own interpretation of all the faiths around
the world.” A handful of journalists—among them Praveen Swami of the Hindu, and
the grand old man of Indian letters, Khushwant Singh—have questioned Dr. Naik’s
views, but most take his carefully crafted image of moderation at face
value.
At
first glance, it’s easy to understand why. Unlike the foaming mullah of
caricature, Dr. Naik eschews traditional clothing for a suit and tie. His
background as a doctor and his often gentle demeanor set him apart, as does his
preaching in English. Unlike traditional clerics, Dr. Naik quotes freely from
non-Muslim scripture, including the Bible and the Vedas. (You have to pay
attention to realize that invariably this is either to disparage other faiths,
or to interpret them in line with his version of Islam.) The depth of Dr. Naik’s
learning is easily apparent.
But
this doesn’t fully explain Dr. Naik’s escape from criticism. It helps that
Indians appear to have trouble distinguishing between free speech and hate
speech. In a Western democracy, demanding the murder of homosexuals and the
second-class treatment of non-Muslims would likely attract public censure or a
law suit. In India, it goes unchallenged as long as it has a religious
imprimatur. However, create a book or a painting that ruffles religious
sentiment, as the writer Taslima Nasreen and the painter M. F. Husain both
discovered, and either the government or a mob of pious vigilantes will strive
to muzzle you.
In
general, India accords extra deference to allegedly holy men of all stripes
unlike, say, France, which strives to keep religion out of the public square.
Taxpayers subsidize the Haj pilgrimage for pious Muslims and a similar, albeit
much less expensive, journey for Hindus to a sacred lake in Tibet. This
reflexive deference effectively grants the likes of Dr. Naik—along with all
manner of Hindu and Christian charlatans—protection against the kind of robust
scrutiny he would face in most other democracies.
Finally,
unlike Hindu bigots, such as the World Hindu Council’s Praveen Togadia, whose
fiercest critics tend to be fellow Hindus, radical Muslims go largely
unchallenged. The vast majority of Indian Muslims remain moderate, but their
leaders are often fundamentalists and the community has done a poor job of
policing its own ranks. Moreover, most of India’s purportedly secular
intelligentsia remains loath to criticize Islam, even in its most radical form,
lest this be interpreted as sympathy for Hindu
nationalism.
Unless
this changes, unless Indians find the ability to criticize a radical Islamic
preacher such as Dr. Naik as robustly as they would his Hindu equivalent, the
idea of Indian secularism will remain deeply flawed.
Source:
Wall Street Journal
Mr.
Dhume, a columnist for WSJ.com, is writing a book on the new Indian middle
class.
9:57 PM
Sultan Shahin
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