This picture by YUSUF KHAN ZISHAN is circulating widely on Facebook. Received @ Kafila from Janaki Rajan who writes:
I was in Hyderabad on that day – August 19th, the day of the Telengana Intensive Household Survey, when people with two wheelers volunteered to help those arriving by trains to reach their homes as autos and taxis were not permitted to to ply that day… a spontaneous idea..
Guest Post by NAUMAN SADIQ
Let me admit at the outset that Assad is an illegitimate tyrant who must abdicate his hereditary throne to the will of the people when the opportune moment arrives. But at the moment our primary concern shouldn’t be bringing democracy to Syria; at the moment our first and foremost priority should be reducing the level of violence in Syria. There are two parties to this conflict: the regime and the rebels (the majority of whom are takfiri jihadis). It is not possible for the regime to deescalate the conflict because it is holding a tiger by the tail. The regime is fighting a war of defense; and what is at stake in this war is its survival; not only its survival but the survival of its clan: the Alawite minority of 2.6 million people who comprise 12% population of Syria’s 22 million people.
The second party to the conflict is the rebels who are generously supported by the Gulf monarchies, Turkey (Sunni Muslims), Western powers and Israel. Don’t get alarmed and be dismissive of the possibility of an alliance [1] between the Sunni Muslims of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey and the Zionists of Israel. It is realpolitik: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In fact the Western interest in this war is partly about Israel’s regional security[2] because the Shia axis comprising Iran-Syria-Hezbollah is an existential threat to Israel; and with each passing year the nature of this threat will enhance proportionally with the increased sophistication of Iranian missile program. During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon, most of the rockets fired by Hezbollah into the Israeli territory missed their target; but according to some reports Iran and Hezbollah have already developed smarter missiles and with every passing year the threat of Hezbollah’s guided missiles so close to Israeli borders will keep on haunting the Israeli strategists’ dreams. Continue reading Syrian Jihad spawned the Islamic State: Nauman Sadiq
This is a guest post by KALEEM KAWAJA
Abhee sub kuch nahin mita shaayad
Hindu-Muslim main pyaar baaqi hai
Ek Bhaayee kaa ek Bhaayee pur
Pyar ka kuch udhaar baaqi hai …
Jawaid Badauni.
Since the past one year, especially after the parliamentary elections were looming close, extremist RSS elements have become all the more aggressive all over the country, especially in the north, east and west. They have taken pains to circulate false news stories about Muslims in general, and Muslim youth in particular, as somehow prone to violence ,and conniving to entrap Hindu girls in romantic relationships with the sole object of securing their conversion to Islam. Regional vernacular newspapers have carried fabricated stories about Muslim youth turning to terrorism and planning bomb blasts in many Indian cities.
Since the past one year, especially after the parliamentary elections were looming close, extremist RSS elements have become all the more aggressive all over the country, especially in the north, east and west. They have taken pains to circulate false news stories about Muslims in general, and Muslim youth in particular, as somehow prone to violence ,and conniving to entrap Hindu girls in romantic relationships with the sole object of securing their conversion to Islam. Regional vernacular newspapers have carried fabricated stories about Muslim youth turning to terrorism and planning bomb blasts in many Indian cities. Continue reading Muslims should Counter the Divisive ‘Love Jihad’ Campaign with Friendship Towards Secular Hindus: Kaleem Kawaja
Hindu Mahasabha members protest against ‘love jihad’ in Lucknow (File photo by Vishal Srivastav in The Indian Express)
Right up in front, a police bike. Imagine the level of intimidation. And the brazen implication of state agencies in what Paul Brass described as “institutionalized riot systems.“
Guest post by SHASHANK KELA
Some time ago, I wrote an article seeking to dissect certain myths about Indian politics – and the class that dominates it, despite protestations to the contrary, the middle-class.[1] It is one of the habits of this class to see, and self-pityingly portray itself as victim – of mass politics, reservation policies, the great unwashed, of politicos bent upon appeasing the poor at the cost of sound principles and policies. Its conviction, of course, is that India was great, and on the cusp of becoming so again. This unfading glory is no more to be disputed than the existence of the sun, although opinions differ upon the precise placement of our golden age.
To the rabid fanatics of Hindutva, it resides in an unspecified Vedic time, when Hindus (not Indians) mysteriously succeeded in inventing aeroplanes, dynamite, nuclear weapons, the wheel, zero, and what have you (and mysteriously losing most of these wonderful things). To the Nehruvians, it is the age of Akbar, Ashoka, Harsha, periods of syncreticism and unique tolerance, where people of different faiths lived together peacefully and a composite culture flowered. To them, and to Gandhians, it also resides in the figure of Gandhi and the tradition of practical spirituality. To the fanatics of Islam, it is probably the age of Alauddin Khilji, the reign of Aurangzeb, and so on.
The never-ending debate about India’s pasts contains a diversity of opinions; however, on its future destiny, these begin to converge. The RSS and BJP believe, for example, that India is destined to become a great industrial power. So did Nehru, and assorted Indian Marxists. Indeed, it is an article of faith for the burgeoning middle-class (mostly, but not entirely Hindu) that India can, should and will equal China to become a great power, economic and military (thus leaving Japan and South Korea in the dust). Continue reading The Indian Illusion: Shashank Kela
So Onam is here again — despite the fact that several contradictory stars above now form a malefic conjunction in the fate of poor Malayalis in Kerala. Indeed, rarely has a stranger gang dominated the starry heavens of our destiny: V M Sudheeran’s targeted gullet moralism that promises to close down a very large number of bars in Kerala and pave the way for total prohibition in the future, gangs of Hindu right wing youth and women forcing the government’s liquor outlets to close, policemen puffed up with jingoistic nationalism who hallucinate about Maoists in wake and sleep and declare social activists like Ajitha “dead”, CPM offspring who think that making foul, putrid public statements justifying murder is politics. All these are, well, rather drunk on self-righteousness and to be true, present a slightly ridiculous sight. Even the weather looks ridiculously inebriated – the sky alternates between bright sunny spells and horrid, harsh showers, crazily swinging between sunny smiles and bursts of tears. Continue reading Temperance in the time of Rahu
Guest post by CHARU GUPTA
लव जेहाद आंदोलन स्त्रियों के नाम पर सांप्रदायिक लामबंदी की एक समकालीन कोशिश है. बतौर एक इतिहासकार मैं इसकी जड़ें औपनिवेशिक अतीत में भी देखती हूँ. जब भी सांप्रदायिक तनाव और दंगों का माहौल मज़बूत हुआ है, तब-तब इस तरह के मिथक गढ़े गए हैं और उनके इर्द गिर्द प्रचार हमारे सामने आये हैं. इन प्रचारों में मुस्लिम पुरुष को विशेष रूप से एक अपहरणकर्ता के रूप में पेश किया गया है और एक ‘कामुक’ मुस्लिम की तस्वीर गढ़ी गयी है.
मैंने 1920-30 के दशकों में उत्तर प्रदेश में साम्प्रदायिकता और यौनिकता के बीच उभर रहे रिश्ते पर काम किया है. उस दौर में लव जेहाद शब्द का इस्तेमाल नहीं हुआ था लेकिन उस समय में भी कई हिंदू संगठनों — आर्य समाज, हिंदू महासभा आदि –- के एक बड़े हिस्से ने ‘मुस्लिम गुंडों’ द्वारा हिंदू महिलाओं के अपहरण और धर्म परिवर्तन की अनेकोँ कहानियां प्रचारित कीं. उन्होंने कई प्रकार के भड़काऊ और लफ्फाज़ी भरे वक्तव्य दिए जिनमें मुसलमानों द्वारा हिंदू महिलाओं पर अत्याचार और व्यभिचार की अनगिनत कहानियां गढ़ी गईं. इन वक्तव्यों का ऐसा सैलाब आया कि मुसलमानों द्वारा हिंदू महिलाओं के साथ बलात्कार, आक्रामक व्यवहार, अपहरण, बहलाना-फुसलाना, धर्मान्तरण और जबरन मुसलमान पुरुषों से हिंदू महिलाओं की शादियों की कहानियों की एक लंबी सूची बनती गई. अंतरधार्मिक विवाह, प्रेम, एक स्त्री का अपनी मर्जी से सहवास और धर्मान्तरण को भी सामूहिक रूप से अपहरण और जबरन धर्मान्तरण की श्रेणी में डाल दिया गया. Continue reading ‘लव जेहाद’ की असलियत – इतिहास के आईने में: चारू गुप्ता
This is a guest post by Mahmood Kooria
We are publishing an English translation of an important interview of the intellectual and academic Kancha Ilaiah, conducted by Mahmood Kooria for the Malayalam weekly Mathrubhumi. While what I see as Professor Ilaiah’s underestimation and perhaps misreading of the historic role of the Communists in Indian politics leaves me severely uncomfortable, especially when he exonerates the right from commensurate charges of elitism, his framing of Hindustva and Modi’s appeal within the great stream of caste in the subcontinent is brilliant and thought-provoking, as always.
Kooria conducted the interview as well as translated it in to English. His introduction is as follows, “At a time when there was no any such discussion, in 2002 Professor Kancha Ilaiah predicted that Narendra Modi will be the prime-ministerial candidate of Baratiya Janata Party. It has come true and now Modi is in the office. At this point, I talked with him at Moulana Azad Urdu University Hyderabad where he chairs the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy. In the conversation, he talked about the future of Modi government and he predicted that a civil war is going to break out in India if Modi does not cater the needs of backward classes. A Malayalam-version of this interview was published in the Mathrubhumi Illustrated Weekly (August 24, 2014).”
Mahmood Kooria: Ten years ago you wrote that Modi will be the prime ministerial candidate of BJP. What would be your response as your prediction has come true?
Kancha Ilaiah: Well, at that time I was predicting that based on the Left parties’ indifference to understand the caste question. The caste question is not been seriously taken by the Left parties. And, after Mandal, the BJP and the RSS wings started looking at caste-question seriously because when Babari Masjid was demolished they mobilized a lot of backward classes. Though they oppose Mandal reservation, they wanted the backward classes to be part of the Hindu religion. Around 1994, a non-Brahmin called Rajju Bhaiya became the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS. Then he recruited a large number of backward classes, large number of youth, and he promoted the people like Narendra Modi, Uma Bharati at that time. Earlier, the first backward-class chief minister of Uttar Pradesh was a BJP man: Kalyan Sing. He was the chief minister in 1992 when the Babri Masjid was demolished.
The Sangh Pariwar was responding to the backward class demands more. But the Left or the Congress was not responding to the OBCs. The Congress was responding to the Dalits and Muslims. There was upper caste all the time on the top. So, when Narendra Modi became the chief minister and this whole atmosphere was created, I was writing a column in The Hindu. I thought that this seems to be cause/course of India, since the Hindu religion is surviving because of the backward classes. It is inevitable for the Hindutva organizations that they will have to project an OBC for the prime-ministership. But there was resistance from within itself. It is not that the Brahmins have given up the principle of varna-dharma. After that article came and of course after my writing Why I am not a Hindu itself, the backward classes even within RSS seemed to use that material for their advantage. The communists did not use or recognize it. The question of labour and caste which I have been consistently raising, which was also part of their theory, they did not care about. So the Communist Party remained tightly under the control of upper castes.
I find it hard to think through the current debate on the Planning Commission (PC) outside a few things. The first is a clear centralisation of power at and within the PMO which I cannot help but be alarmed by. It’s all well and good when the decisions are those you agree with and all to easy to forget what centralisation does in the hands of, let’s please not forget so easily, a man whose IMHO has no H.
Its faults are easy to list but the PC (when it worked) did remain a space for thinking through a centre-state relationship and a development vision outside the government. It was a moment of articulation of intent with an (albeit diminishing) ability to put some weight behind it. I can’t quite bring myself to defend it because of what it refused to become in the more recent years, and the fights it refused to fight, but the need for such an autonomous voice remains. I don’t believe this new body will be anything other than a rubber stamp for a deeply authoritative PMO. In that, I am cautious of what will come. And by cautious, I mostly mean afraid.
Continue reading Reading the Debate on the Planning Commission
Guest post by LEE-ALISON SIBLEY
Back in the 1960s when Hollywood was making a number of movies based on biblical stories, they came out with Orson Welles as King Saul in “David and Goliath.” I was a little kid when I saw this movie, but I remember identifying with little David who yes, played beautifully on his harp, and used his slingshot with divine accuracy. I also remember the monster Goliath – he was huge and ugly and represented the Philistines, our enemies. I cheered in my head and my heart for David to defeat the monster and he did, so that I could feel the good guys won and God was indeed on our side, the side of the Israelites.
Like any idealistic Jew, though not religious, I went to Israel to work on a kibbutz in the summer of 1971. I was in the south, near Eilat and the border with Jordan. Young and naïve, I was friendly with everyone I met — the Sabras of Israel, the Christians in Bethlehem, and Arabs in Gaza. In Gaza? Yes, I was there with a British fellow from the kibbutz who was picking up some cane furniture he had ordered. I wasn’t supposed to be there, of course, and when an Israeli army jeep spotted me, my friend was in big trouble. “Get her out of here immediately!” was the order he shouted. I guess it had something to do with my appearance and that there were no other women on the street at that time. Like I said, I was friendly with everyone – my parents did not raise me to hate, they raised me to love. The Israelis tried to make me feel guilty for not staying in Israel, but I kept saying, “I’m an American, my home is the U.S.A.” Still, I certainly supported Israel and every person I met there had lost someone, a family member or a friend in a war and I felt very sad for them and angry that they lived with the constant threat of attack. Continue reading When David Became Goliath: Lee-Alison Sibley
With increasing reports of people being arrested for not standing for the national anthem, it’s a good idea to remember why they stopped the practice of playing the thing in cinema halls in the first place – nationalism cannot be coercively produced in people’s breasts through such inane, superficial and empty gestures.
And the converse – just because you dont stand up for the national anthem, it doesn’t make you anti-Indian. You may just have another idea of India, or you may show your concern for “India” by some more concrete gesture, or through your politics.
As Anmol Karnik asks:
If we play the national anthem before a television show begins at home, would people stand up? I doubt it. Most people who do it, do it because it’s not socially acceptable to sit down when everyone else is standing. It’s being part of the herd, so there’s probably some part of unity embedded in it, but unity in a forceful and degrading manner.
Just as a matter of interest, this is what the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 says:
Whoever intentionally prevents the singing of the Jana Gana Mana or causes disturbances to any assembly engaged in such singing shall be punished with imprisonment for a term, which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
There is thus, no legal obligation whatsoever to actually stand while Jana Gana Mana plays. Continue reading Why should we stand for the national anthem?
“In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.”-Bertolt Brecht
I.
There are moments in one’s life when one really feels perplexed.
You find yourself in a situation which you had never envisaged before.
Most of your predictions about the unfolding situation have gone awry or have not proved upto the mark.
One wants to remain calm, to contemplate things around you, take a break, but I know that for people gathered here – activists, writers committed to a cause, political workers – there is no such luxury. As rightly put by Jose Maria Sison, Filipino poet and revolutionary in one of his short poems
“The Tree Wants to be Calm
But the wind will not stop”
A youth from Peroorkada (Kerala) was arrested on Wednesday by the police on charges of showing disrespect to the national flag and the national anthem.
The police said Salman, 25, and his six friends, including two women, had showed disrespect to the national anthem while it was being played inside a movie theatre in the city on August 18. A few others who saw the group remaining seated and allegedly “making catcalls” when the anthem was being played lodged a complaint with the police.
This incident comes just days after a student was arrested in Karwar, Karnataka for similar charges. The Kumta police had arrested Jabeer Khan, a student for allegedly forwarding a message, that according to the complainant, mocked the National Anthem and India.
Statement by concerned citizens on the arrest of Salman and demanding his immediate release
On August 20th night 12 pm Salman a student and social activist from Trivandrum was picked up by the police from his home in Peroorkada. The immediate accusation against him was that he had insulted the national anthem while it was being played in a theatre, where he had gone to watch a movie. Later his comments on Facebook where he questions nationalism as a philosophical and political concept were also pointed out as a reason for his arrest. It is also being reported that there was a deliberate attempt to frame him by some right-wing hindutva groups and that they are the ones who are behind his arrest.
There is a lack of clarity regarding his arrest and the way it was conducted, late in the midnight hours of August 20th. It is clear, though, that none of the customary norms were followed during his arrest. Even after it was said that Salman was taken to the Thampanoor station, the police themselves later denied this. For a whole night and the next day even Salman’s parents had no access to him. In fact, Salman was taken from prison to prison like it is usually done with so called ‘notorious terrorists’ and the police refused to give out any information about him both to his parents and to the lawyers who had contacted them. It was onlyon August 21st evening that it was made known that there was an FIR recorded against him and that a case was registered under IPC act 124 A and 66 A charging him of sedition and of sending offensive messages through communicative service. Though there were many other students with him it is surprising that it was only Salman who was picked out and arrested. Continue reading Arrested for sitting during the national anthem: Solidarity Statement with Salman
Guest post by ADITYA VELIVELLI
The Modi government’s actions over WTO are a case of much ado about nothing. They have pointedly created a false perception over a non-issue so as to appear pro-poor. Modi said “Do we choose feeding our poor or getting good press world-wide?” Turn this statement around and one gets to see the truth of the matter. The real attempt here is “How to masquerade as pro-poor and get good press in India by using WTO?”
This demonstration of concern for the poor helps Modi’s government in implementing ultra-neoliberal economic policies in the coming months. To understand the game-plan one should only look at the people guiding Modi’s economic thinking. Continue reading Who is guiding Modi’s economic thinking and what is their background?: Aditya Velivelli
Guest Post by KAVITA KRISHNAN
Even as the communal cauldron in UP is kept on the boil, there is news that the RSS has launched a campaign to tie Rakhis to lakhs of Hindu men, asking them to pledge to protect their sisters from Muslim men and “love jehad.” The VHP has been running a helpline urging Hindus to approach them “if your daughter is being harassed by Muslim boys.” And a khap panchayat in Muzaffarnagar has imposed a ban on mobile phones and jeans for girls, claiming that these result in ‘eve-teasing’.
Woven into the above events is an old, familiar theme – that of patriarchal restrictions packaged as ‘protection’. In the wake of the anti-rape movement that followed December 16 2012, the streets of Delhi and many other parts of India had resounded with the voices of women declaring ‘Don’t take away our freedoms in the name of ‘protection’ – protect our right to fearless, fullest freedom instead’. Those women had raised their voice demanding freedom from sexual violence – and also freedom from rape culture that advices women to dress decently to avoid rape; and freedom from the khap panchayats, freedom even from the restrictions imposed by one’s own fathers and brothers.
Continue reading Rape and Rakhi – Patriarchal-Communal Narratives: Kavita Krishnan
Let it not be said that nobody cried when the news came. Let it not be remembered by the children that India “stood with” Israel through the Gaza bombings of August 2014 (God, let it not continue beyond August 2014). Let no-one assume that all 1.3 billion of us continued – as the bombs fell on fields and courtyards and washing hung up to dry in Gaza – that we in India defined our ethical positions purely within the unholy triad of family, community, nation. Let there be a tiny record of protest. A tiny record of a tiny protest, given the monstrosity of the crime. But we are in the business of remembering, since they are profiting from our forgetting. They profit from our forgetting language, since we can’t name what is going on in Gaza as war. They profit from our not being able to remember our mythologies, because this is a war in which one side is David and the other Goliath, but Goliath is winning, because the world has been told he is David. In a nation without language, without myths, without memory, without ethics, jealously holding a tattered banner, with a single word on it – ‘development’ – some Indians protested.
Global Day of Rage against Gaza, Jantar Mantar, New Delhi August 2014:
Guest post by An Anonymous Advocate from the AP High Court
On 22nd April, 2014, two Judges of the Andhra Pradesh High Court held that there was no evidence in the Chunduru atrocity case. The court acquitted all the accused. Not just that. They blamed the Dalits for not being responsible enough in alerting the police immediately, and obliquely cast a doubt on their integrity.
The Chunduru atrocity has gained national importance as much for the atrocity itself as for its place in the Dalit movement. On 6th August 1991, eight dalits were hacked to death by the upper caste men of Chunduru village, located in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. The political mobilization that was generated around this atrocity became the corner stone for the Dalit movement in Andhra Pradesh, and an inspiration for Dalit movements elsewhere in the country. On the legal side, it has been one of those long-drawn trials, resiliently overcoming one hurdle after another, be it the controversy around who the victims are (Dalits or Christians), or regarding the choice of the Special Public Prosecutor for the trial, or the venue of the trial. The case went back and forth between the High Court and the trial court, having been contested viciously by the Reddy accused, their lawyers and their ideologues.
Continue reading The Chunduru Caste Atrocity – Discussing a Retrograde Judgment: Anonymous
Extremely disturbing reports of anti-Israeli sentiments spilling over into generalized attacks in France have been coming in lately. This is completely unacceptable. The just cause of the Palestinian people is about occupation of their land by Zionists and all Jews are by no means responsible for the brutality that Israel is exhibiting in its attacks on Gaza, sparing no one and even specifically targeting small children. This is not a religious or a racial issue but one of political justice. Let us make no mistake that any attempt to make it into either a religious or race issue will only harm the Palestinian cause in the long run. Here is an extract from a report in Huffington Post:
France’s politicians and community leaders have criticised the “intolerable” violence against Paris’ Jewish community, after a pro-Palestinian rally led to the vandalizing and looting of Jewish businesses and the burning of cars.
It is the third time in a week where pro-Palestinian activists have clashed with the city’s Jewish residents. On Sunday, locals reported chats of “Gas the Jews” and “Kill the Jews”, as rioters attacked businesses in the Sarcelles district, known as “little Jerusalem”…
Religious leaders gathered for an interfaith service on Monday to call for calm, and Haim Korsia, the chief rabbi of France, and Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of Drancy shook hands on the steps of the synagogue. Read the full report here
That said, it also needs to be underlined that in this no-holds-barred war, Zionists themselves have been keen and eager to see that the anti-Zionist feeling is transformed rapidly into an anti-Semitic one. Thus Mondoweiss published a Youtube video along with a report that showed that the attack on the synagogue was actually provoked by members of the Jewish Defense League. Mondoweiss’ story has since been confirmed by the President of the Synagogue de la Roquette. His words:
In an interview broadcast Friday on the 24-hour news channel i-Télé, Serge Benhaïm said that there was “not a single projectile thrown at the synagogue” and that “at no moment, were we ever physically in danger.” (“Pas un seul projectile lancé sur la synagogue”. “A aucun moment, nous n’avons été physiquement en danger.”)
While Benhaïm did not describe the street fight outside as resulting from a JDL “provocation”, he did say that the extremist group smashed up a cafe on Rue de la Roquette (“le président de la synagogue de la rue de la Roquette confirme également que la LDJ a ‘cassé des chaises et des tables’) in order to confront pro-Palestinian demonstrators (“pour aller livrer ce face-à-face”). He added that he did not condone the action, and described the JDL as having a “bad reputation” using a French phrase – “une renommée un peu sulfureuse — that is not done justice by a literal translation. Read the full Mondoweiss report here.
There will be – as there are – desperate attempts to drown the groundswell of anti-Israeli sentiment in a flood of outcries of anti-Semitism, by all interested quarters. There is need therefore to see that no quarter is yielded to those who wish to transform the present mood of anti-Zionism into anti-Semitism.
The following is a statement issued by some concerned public health professionals in New Delhi, on 21st July, 2014
The world is once again witness to the macabre dance of death in Gaza unleashed by the Israeli aggressors, and once again the news of scores of innocent Palestinian deaths, including those of a number of women and children, is flooding in. The tragedy is compounded many-fold by the conspiracy of silence on this issue entered into by all the major powers of the world, who have singularly failed to take any effective measure to restrain the Israeli aggressors. The only exception to this silence is USA, Israel’s long time sponsor, which has once again blocked efforts at the United Nations to pass any motion of censure against Israel.
Israel’s alibi for the latest attack – to punish perpetrators of abduction and murder of three Israeli boys, holds little merit when Israel is the occupying force in first place and its leaders are belligerently calling for annihilation of ordinary Palestinian lives without discretion in accordance with their doctrine of ‘collective responsibility.’ The deputy speaker of Israeli Knesset, Moshe Feiglin has called Arab people “a gang of bandits” and has argued in favor of Israeli government cutting off electricity supply to Gaza in order to paralyze its hospitals. His reported statement is – “The blood of a dialysis patient in Gaza is not redder than the blood of our IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers who will, God forbid, need to enter Gaza.” Continue reading Concerned Public Health Professionals on the Israeli attack on Gaza
We are reproducing this piece by Mina Malik-Hussain, which appeared in The Nation (Pakistan) as it deals with an important issue which concerns the changes that are taking place within subcontinental Islam. The piece underlines the great cultural battle underway within Islam which, in the final analysis is about being Muslim in many different ways. Mina Malik-Hussain is a feminist based in Lahore.
When we were small, there was a month and it used to be called Ramzan. It was Ramzan on television, it was Ramzan in the newspaper with the sehr-o-iftar timings and while nobody had a cell phone or Facebook to wish anyone, it would have been Ramzan Mubarik nonetheless. Sometimes if one was being quite linguistically adventurous it would be Ramazan, but nobody seemed to mind.
And then, insidiously, The Arabs crept up on us. It wasn’t like the return of Muhammad Bin Qasim, but somehow Ramzan became Ramadan. Nobody knew exactly how it happened, but almost overnight our crisp z’uad sound became a lisping Arab burr, and we—a nation of language speakers with no apparent consonant pronunciation difficulties—were flung into the downward spiral of an affectation obsession. Now it was cool to sound Arab, and soon enough it began to be increasingly desirable to look it. Cue Al Huda, cue our streets being lined with gangly palm trees that do nothing, either in terms of beauty or shade, cue the availability of the most bling Islamic cover-up gear you’ll see this side of Dubai.
Still, as a nation we were still fairly open-minded about this, so we fasted year after year and didn’t really pay attention to the semantics of it. We were busy trying to live our lives and be regular Pakistanis, but The Arabs kept making inroads onto our cultural minds. One year ‘khuda-hafiz’, that old and comfortable way of saying goodbye and Godspeed, became ‘Allah hafiz’ with the dubious reason of having to specify which deity to whose protection one was recommending you. Because here in multi-religious, multi-cultural and secular Pakistan there was actual leeway where one would wonder who exactly Khuda is, and perhaps not want to be entrusted to a pagan god. Some people resisted, and continue to resist Allah hafiz and keep saying khuda-hafiz with the logic and hope that whatever His name, He will still protect and love them. Also if it was good enough for one’s grandfather and great-grandfather, it was just fine for them too. Read the full article here
Even as Israeli bombings and ground attacks on Gaza continue, there are no less disturbing reports of ISIS attacks on Christians, the last of whom are reportedly fleeing Mosul. One of the oldest churches has been attacked and reduced to ashes. The rise of ISIS is not only a danger signal for non Muslim or even non Sunni minorities, it represents one of the most serious threats in recent times to the entire heritage of Islam and the diversity within it as well. We reproduce below a piece by Irfan Al-Alwai argues that Sunni Muslims must reject the ISIS’ new ‘Caliphate’. Irfan Al-Alawi is the executive director of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation and international director of Centre for Islamic Pluralism in the United States. Here are some extracts from the article:
On July 5, the pan-Arab television channel Al-Arabiya, Saudi-owned but based in Dubai, reproduced images of vandalism by the “Islamic State,” using bulldozers against Sunni and Sufi shrines, and dynamite to blow up Shia meeting houses, or husseiniyat, in the Iraqi province of Nineveh, which the marauders seized in June. The pictures were released by the “Islamic State.” Four Sufi shrines and six Shia husseiniyat had been leveled.
In addition, Chaldean Christian and Syrian Orthodox cathedrals in Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, were found emptied by the fanatics, who removed their crosses then hung black “Islamic State” flags on them.
The “Islamic State,” through its supposed caliph, declared, “rush O Muslims to your state. Yes, it is your state. Rush, because Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis. The earth is Allah’s… Muslims everywhere, whoever is capable of performing hijrah [emigration] to the Islamic State, then let him do so, because hijrah to the land of Islam is obligatory… We make a special call to the scholars, fuqahā’ [experts in Islamic jurisprudence], and callers [to religion], especially the judges, as well as people with military, administrative, and service expertise, and medical doctors and engineers of all different specializations and fields… their emigration is wājib ‘aynī [an individual obligation], so that they can answer the dire need of the Muslims for them.”
This demand reveals the cynical nature of the “Islamic State” and its bid for jurisdiction over all Sunnis. Although it has seized parts of Syria and Iraq, it cannot defeat the bloodthirsty regime of Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus, and it certainly cannot protect Muslims in Burma. Regardless of its bluster, it cannot “conquer Rome,” as it threatens. Therefore, the “caliph” pleads for a supposed religious duty by Sunnis throughout the world to travel to the “Islamic State” and reinforce it. Read the full article here.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 