Siva kumar and Holy Quran

>Look at this photograph.
What do you see?
He is Siva Kumar, a famous cine actor.
Do you see anything extra ordinary?
Now, come on. Take a look once again.
Could you see it?
Hmmm. Come on yaar.
... ... ... ...
... ... ... ...
... ... ... ...
... ... ... ...
... ... ... ...
... ... ... ...
Have a closer look.
What do you see there?
Do you see the shelf?
Yeaah! You got it. In that shelf amidst the rows of books... the first book in the row is... a copy of the Tamil Translation of the Holy Quran published by Islamic Foundation Trust.
This photograph was published in the popular English Daily The Hindu. To be specific, in the friday supplement of The Hindu.
Br. L. M. Naser Sahib of Alankar Silk House, Aminjikarai informed this news. Jazakallah Naser Bhai!!

Note: It is pleasing to note that the Tamil Translation of the Holy Quran published by Islamic Foundation Trust has reached there. Has he read it? What are his feelings? It would be useful to gather it.
But, the question is who would do it?

Here is an interesting article on Islamic Economics. It is written by Dr. Muhammad Najathullah Siddiqui. He is a member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and has written number of books on the subject. He has been awarded with Shah Waliullah Award. He could be said as the authority in the subject. His other articles could be read here.

CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS AND ISLAMIC ECONOMICS

mnsiddiqi@hotmail.com

[31 October 2008]

The current crisis emanating from US financial markets and spreading to other developed and fast developing countries like China, India and Brazil, is threatening a global meltdown leaving the entire world poorer and full of forebodings regarding future .It started as a credit crunch due to highly over-stretched leverage, was aggravated by the complexity of the products and reached its zenith due to moral failure generating conflicts of interest and mismatch between incentives of the various groups and individuals involved in the saga.

Islamic economics stands for abolition of riba and maysir in financial dealings as well as on a regard for the interest of others in one’s pursuit of material gains.

The purpose of this brief note is to examine the relevance of Islamic economics today. Does it have a message for humanity insofar as its current financial problems are concerned?

In what follows we first outline the broad features of the crisis under the four headings noted above, trying to establish the thesis that most of them are rooted in a moral failure that leads to exploitation and corruption. This would be followed up by an explanation of riba and mysir that equates them to bank interest and gambling-like speculation based on risk shifting as distinct from risk sharing.

It will be argued that debt-finance coupled with speculative products whose intricacies defy understanding provide ample opportunities to greedy profit-maximizing agents to exploit the aspirations of ordinary investors and for goading home owners and consumers into living beyond their means and chasing untenable dreams.

Even the calls for more and more deregulation, and the philosophy of non interference with financial markets have [im]moral dimensions. There is a hidden agenda behind this call [Joseph Stiglitz and Bruce Greenwald, Towards a New Paradigm in Monetary Economics (2003), p. 206].

Though they swear by the name of efficiency and innovation, the champions of deregulation and laissez faire have their self interest in view, not the social weal.

In conclusion a world of banking and finance without riba and maysir will be suggested as the best alternative to the current scenario. In this new environment risk sharing will replace risk shifting and morality, advising people to be moderate in their material pursuits and considerate about public good in their private decisions, coupled with realism, will serve as the corrective to self- destructive outgrowths of current financial capitalism.

It will be noted that for this alternative model to be robust and resilient, morality has to be rooted in spirituality. This will provide a basis for willing acceptance of social norms, state supervision, regulation and intervention in the market based on values rather than interests.

THE ECONOMICS OF CURRENT CRISIS

We begin with the fourth element of the crisis noted above, i.e. moral failure and a mismatch between the incentives of various players in the financial arena.

The reason: some of the other elements of the situation described above are partly a product of this factor.

Currently, financial institutions include banks, investment companies, insurance companies etc., managed by hired professionals. Those who govern financial conglomerates by virtue of owning enough shares have motives different from ordinary shareholders. Almost the entire population in developed countries is involved in supplying capital through purchase of stocks, bonds, insurance policies, pension funds, etc. While these ‘principals’ are interested in profits they care about many other things too, among them stability, jobs, social justice, and anxiety free communities. Not so the hired managers who consider profit maximization to be their mission as it earns them maximum bonus and continued employment.

There are those amongst middlemen who earn fees. They earn more when transactions multiply. In an environment where no one cares about others, focused as everyone is on his or her own interest, public interest is supposedly guarded by regulators. How can the same self-focused assembly of individuals throw up regulators who would work to protect and promote public good remains a moot question for neo-classical economics. An answer to this question is, however, provided by the public choice school: public servants too, elected as well as appointed, seek to maximize private gain!

Without committing myself to this rather bleak view of man in society, I suggest that we embark upon a discussion of the first three factors from the vantage point provided by this very view. It means I regard maysir- infested financial products[ like CDS, Credit Default Swaps], the inverted pyramid of debts[with a slender base of real assets] and the dearth of liquidity…,all the remaining three features of the current situation, to be rooted in the moral failure briefly described above. It could have been different. The reason it is what it is can be found in the denudation of economics from morality after the secularization of society in the wake of enlightenment. Islamic civilization has the instruments to pre-commit man in society to certain values leading to rules [abolition of interest and gambling, for example] that guard the society from falling prey to shortsighted predators. I proceed to elaborate taking the above-mentioned elements of the crisis one by one.

CASINO ECONOMICS AND HUMAN WELFARE

What is wrong with gambling? Firstly, gambling does not create additional wealth. Games of chance only transfer wealth from its (losing) owners to new (winning) ones. Considering the human resources consumed in the process, wealth transfers through games of chance cannot be considered to be efficient. They do not serve any social purpose. The satisfaction and thrill they provide to the players do not justify the opportunity cost involved. Other exonerating circumstances like the revenue to state in form of taxes or employment generated by casinos, lotteries, etc. cannot be considered as ‘advantages’ until the acceptability of gambling itself is established.

I argue that risk shifting is gambling. One who buys risk exchanges a definite amount of money (the price) for an uncertain amount of money, whose delivery itself is not certain. Credit Default Swaps are an appropriate example. The millions of loans made by a bank are each subject to the risk of default (credit risk) in various degrees. As Joseph Stiglitz and Bruce Greenwald have rightly pointed out credit is not homogenous like money [Towards a New Paradigm in Monetary Economics (2003), page 271]. The risks attached to each loan are unique. The institution undertaking to pay for all defaulters among, say a million borrowers has no scientific basis for measuring the risk it is taking. There is no long history to fall back on. The law of large numbers does not apply. It is just taking chances, gambling. The banks that so protect themselves against credit risks are emboldened to give more and more loans. That is how aggressive lending policy gained an impetus. The sub-prime mortgage crisis would not have occurred without the speculative deals like CDS. Aggressive lenders offered to refinance mortgages on the basis of rising home prices, virtually converting owned homes into ATM machines, sending people on a buying spree, some of it on installment purchase basis, encouraging an expansion that had little basis in the fundamentals: earning powers, disposable incomes and savings and investments.

The Islamic approach to risk is realistic but cautious. It does not allow deals involving excessive uncertainty (gharar kathir). It encourages sharing arrangements for facing risks. The additional wealth created with the use of existing wealth through risky ventures should be shared between fund users and fund owners while both bear the risks involved and the resulting losses. Differences in the participants’ perception of risks involved will be decisive in determining the terms of bargain between those sharing risk. Even though the motive of each party is making profits, it is very different from taking chances in gambling. There is real wealth to be created, real gain to be reaped. It is different in case of risk shifting [as in CDS]. Neither the buyer nor the seller of risk has any stakes in real wealth creation. As in gambling only one party actually gains, either the seller of risk or the buyer. It is different in risk sharing in which both parties gain (or lose). Like gambling, risk shifting is a zero sum game.

Risk sharing fits in with a system that integrates risk management with value creation. The Islamic institutions of musharakah, and mudarabah, for example target value creation and are good ways of managing risk. In a healthy venture fear of loss works to counter-balance hope for gain. When a system allows shifting the risk (at a cost) the fear factor becomes inoperative insofar as the seller of risk is concerned. It is worse when the government takes over the risk (as in case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in USA). Such a system is heavily tilted towards the rich and leads to greater inequality as it protects the lenders but leaves the borrowers to fend for them selves. This is the feature of the current system that lead to an almost universal cry that it amounted to privatizing gain and socializing pain---profits go to the corporations, losses are borne by the taxpayers.

As an aside take a minute to ponder over the Islamic approach as encapsulated in verse 278-281 of the second chapter of Quran:

Believers! Have fear of Allah and give up all outstanding interest if you do truly believe. But if you fail to do so, then be warned of war from Allah and His Messenger. If you repent even now, you have the right of return of your capital; neither will you do wrong nor will you be wronged. But if the debtor is in straitened circumstances, let him have respite until the time of ease; and whatever you remit by way of charity is better for you, if only you know.[2:278-81]

In effect the above is advising how to handle a crisis caused by default. A crisis like the sub-prime crisis in US (if it ever occurred in an Islamic interest free system based on risk sharing) would be handled not by extending credit to lenders but by giving more time to borrowers and writing off some of the debts.

CREDIT WITHOUT CREDIBILITY

Over extended leverage, outstanding credits amounting to an ever-increasing multiple of existing capitals of the relevant institutions, is a direct result of financing through interest bearing debts. The business of lending to thrive requires continued expansion of credit. After all, the primary concern of the lending institutions is making money that comes in the form of interest on loans outstanding. Every loan recovery kills an existing income stream, every loan extension generates a new income stream. With credit defaults swaps available and insurance companies like AIG supposedly providing cover, sub-prime lending looked attractive. The rest of the story is well known.

Debt financing of productive enterprise amounts to preferring risk shifting to risk sharing. This is immoral as well as counterproductive. The environment in which productive enterprise takes place does not guarantee creation of additional wealth. It is only a probability. The lender’s demand for a guaranteed positive return to the sum lent is unfair. Actually it cannot be met at the macro [i.e., society’s] level in the long run. Some enterprises do fail. Some others end up without any positive return to capital invested. Repayment in these cases can come only from old wealth already existing when the debt financed new projects were launched. Repayment of the borrowed sum with interest added, by those whose ventures failed to create wealth, causes a transfer of wealth from the entrepreneurs to the owners of money capital who would not share risk yet want a return. Putting producers/innovators at a disadvantage as compared to those having money to spare does not bode well for society. Easy money for those who have contributes to a life style at the top of the wealth pyramid that creates problems at its bottom. Society can continue meeting its debt obligations as long as there is growth at an accelerated rate. But the planet earth, its ecology, environment and resources are not designed for limitless growth. Deterioration in environment, increase in inequality, and social tensions are direct results of heavy reliance on debt finance.

The problem is aggravated when monetary expansion too takes place in the form of interest bearing debts, as is the case with the current monetary system. In order for new money to come in circulation a loan must be given, a new debt must be created. For every loan to be paid back with interest, borrowers need more money than they have. This additional money leads to additional debts, and so on. As pointed out in the previous paragraph the debt imperative creates a growth imperative that contributes to the destruction of the ecosystem.

Selling Debts

Some debt financing has always been part of the financial markets. Even in hey day of Islamic civilization trade credit, a form of debt financing , thrived. Islam has no problem with that as it fits in with prohibition of exchanging money now with a larger amount of money after a period of time. The problem starts with sale of debt, whether created by a money loan or owed as a price of goods sold on credit. Sale of debt is allowed at par or face value. But there can hardly be a market for exchanging debts at par. You have a market for debt when bond [i.e., debt] prices are determined by supply and demand. Sale of debt implies selling risk [or shifting risk]. A thriving market for debts at prices determined by supply and demand [as in conventional bond markets] is vulnerable to gambling like speculation as there exists no objective basis for measuring risks of default. The changing prices reflect changing subjective perceptions of the risks involved. As is well known these perceptions can sometimes be manipulated through planting stories in the media.

Remarkably, a ban on selling debts would drastically reduce the outstanding volume of debt. In effect it would scale down the volume of outstanding debts to the level of existing real assets. The inverted pyramid of debts, standing on a slender base of real wealth, would be replaced by a rectangular column of debts, owed against an equal amount of real goods and services acquired. The volatility in the bond market is directly related to the total volume of bonds. The larger the volume of debts, the weaker its connection with real wealth, and the more the scope for gambling-like speculation.

Derivatives

Derivatives also involve excessive uncertainty. They facilitate managing certain market risks (related to prices, rates of exchange, etc.). Chance remains the basic element in the situation, however, expectations being based on pure speculation. Derivatives too are a zero sum game: you lose what I gain, unlike the win-win situations in trade or risk sharing. The claim that they increase liquidity and improve operational market efficiency in financial markets remains unsubstantiated. What can be empirically established is that, whatever the initial benefits for a certain class of investors, availability of derivatives invites speculative activity. This is evidenced by the fact that currently the volume of derivatives being traded stands at many times the world GDP. The market for derivatives literally becomes a casino.

THE NATURE AND ROLE OF LIQUIDITY

The demand for liquidity increases with expansion of credit. The current liquidity shortage is rooted in over extended leverage. Unbridled risk taking as in sub prime mortgage, results in lack of trust in the stability of the current prices as well as in defaults leading to strains on bank liquidity. The situation leads to a decrease in peoples’ confidence in the banks, resulting in widespread withdrawals. Pouring in more cash in the system could be more effective if it were to be given to the ultimate debtors---consumers, small businesses, poor home owners, etc.--- who would then use it to meet their financial obligations or engage in new purchases. As it works in the current system it is given to the banks and insurance companies. It enters the market as loans, creating another chain of debt obligations. This amounts to solving a crisis by methods that sow seeds for another crisis.

CONCLUSION

I wish I could go on. But there is already a wealth of material available on the subject. I seek the readers’ response to my central point: All the technical flaws and tactical mistakes leading us to the current crisis are rooted in a moral failure.

Given a society in which individuals care about public good and cooperate with one another to promote it, even though after securing their self-interest in order to ensure survival, we could escape much of the troubles currently facing us. Only such a society of individuals who care for public good can opt for the right mix of state intervention and private initiatives. Such a society is possible. Let us first shed the illusion that we have been living for decades now under the best of all arrangements, social, political, economic and financial. We have not. Let all join the search for an alternative.

Also read : This is not credit crisis! by Mansoor Durrani

Of Dharma Yudh and Jihad

Here is an interesting article which was published in The Times of India. It is different and innovative. The writer deserves all praise for writing such a balanced article. The lines which appealed to me more than everything else is the one: "Planting a bomb surreptitiously to kill an innocent is not Jihad; so, too, burning a handicap person to death is not Dharma Yudh."

Let all those involved heed this sane advice. Let peace prevail. Let thousands of flowers bloom in this orchard. Congratulate this young writer and encourage him. He blogs here.
Salam Ishthiyaque bhai!

Of Dharma Yudh and Jihad

Sayyid Abdullah Tariq is a modern, educated Muslim from Rampur, U.P. He has devoted his life to studying the Quran and the Vedas and believes that the two Holy Scriptures were revealed to guide humanity. In October 2003, I invited him to deliver a lecture at the Hamdard University on "the commonalities between the Vedas and the Quran". During the lecture he, all of sudden, sought to know the communal composition of the audience. There were some 200 students and it was pleasing to note that about 60 per cent of them were Hindus. The speaker asked them if anyone had seen the Vedas; he was sure that none had read them. To our surprise no one gave an affirmative answer.

Until a few years ago, Hamdard University used to organize lectures by eminent scholars to sensitize students about various cultures. Unfortunately, the lecture series has discontinued but its relevance cannot be undermined. In fact, in view of rising communal tensions, universities in the country need to organize such lectures to produce better-informed leaders.

Ever since I heard Mr. Tariq's lecture in 2003, I have wondered if one's poor knowledge of his own religion is as dangerous for socio-communal harmony as our ignorance about other faiths. No one can deny that such ignorance has often been exploited by misguided elements to create cleavages in society. And, of late, elements of both —the Hindu and Muslim communities, as alleged by police and the media, have indulged in abominable acts of violence.

Both Hindu and Islamic scriptures have outlined their concepts of Dharma Yudh and Jihad. In essence, the two imply man's utmost effort, including war, to establish justice. They have not only explained their respective concepts of war but have also laid down principles which warring sides are required to observe.

Hindu scriptures have outlined the rules to be observed in the battlefield. The Manusmriti has forbidden to smite one's foes with sharp weapons concealed in wood or with arrows mischievously barbed. It has also forbidden the use of poisoned arrows, or darts blazing with fire. Similarly, it urges a horseman not to attack the enemy alighted on the ground, or those who surrender. A warrior in sleep or without arms will not be attacked; noncombatants are also to be spared.

The Mahabharata has also outlined similar rules which warriors are required to observe. Among other things, it has forbidden to kill a weak or wounded man. The old, women of all ages, children and those fleeing from the battlefield should neither be attacked nor killed. By-standers and non-combatant citizens walking along roads should not be killed. Above all, gardens, temples and other places of public worship are not to be attacked or ransacked. Fighting at night or attacking the enemy under the cover of darkness is also not permitted. As in other religions, in Islam too, the most important teaching is man's right to live. And the power to establish justice that involves taking an individual's life is vested with the state.

Killing a man unjustly is like killing all of mankind, declares the Holy Quran.

Islam has permitted war on those who oppress mankind, unleash violence and drive people out of their homes just because they follow a different religion. But while permitting war, Islam has also laid down some principles of warfare which are to be strictly followed. These principles, like those of Hinduism, are regarding the rights of combatants and non-combatants, the rights of ambassadors, captives and those conquered. The combatant belligerents are those who take up arms and physically participate in a war. Like Hinduism, Islam has also urged not to kill the aged, women, children, the sick, the wounded, the blind, the handicap and wayfarers. War has to be fought justly for a just cause and recourse to violence is permitted only in unavoidable circumstances.

It would be appropriate to ask if people, Hindus and Muslims allegedly involved in acts of terrorism, have ever sought to understand the noble teachings of their respective faiths regarding the rights of innocents who often happen to be targets of their ferocious bombings and mob frenzy. Dharma Yudh and Jihad are noble concepts and the two are waged for attaining cherished ideals like establishing justice and ending oppression. They are also conducted chivalrously and within the moral limits prescribed by Holy Scriptures.

Planting a bomb surreptitiously to kill an innocent is not Jihad; so, too, burning a handicap person to death is not Dharma Yudh.

There is something seriously wrong with the understanding that terrorism is Jihad or Dharma Yudh. It is sad to note that the energy of so many young men is being misused to cause destruction. It is negative thinking which succeeds only in holding back development. Positive thinking, on the other hand, enables man to create a better and more prosperous tomorrow which is what India needs.

THIS ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN TIMES OF INDIA ON NOV 2th (But you cannot see it in TOI's website.)

‘Godse’s way of thinking is alive and influential’

‘Godse’s way of thinking is alive and influential’

The following is the full, unexpurgated text of the convocation address made by the Kannada literatteur Prof U.R. Anantha Murthy at the Jamia Milia Islamia on Thursday, 30 October 2008:

***

Dear Chancellor, Vice-chancellor, Deans of faculties, Teachers and Students,

When I say it is an honour for me to be the chief guest in this convocation of Jamia Milia Islamia, it is not a formal statement prefacing all such addresses. I mean it because in these difficult times for most of us, the vice-chancellor of this great University has shown the courage to act properly, and humanely that would have been the correct action by a head of an institution in normal times. But the hysterical attack on him by his critics prompts me to say that he has defended the ideals that our Constitution upholds and nothing more.

Nobody who is sane can defend the terrorists.

Let us not forget that Gandhiji was killed because he was perceived to be a friend of the Muslims, and an enemy of the Hindus while he strived against the violent actions of both Hindus and Muslims, and fasted to make his own disciples in power to give to Pakistan what was its due, legally.

The stridency with which some top political leaders speak now a days makes one feel that Nathuram Godse’s way of thinking is yet alive and influential in our country. We want not only the terrorists to be punished for their inhumanity, but the political and cultural malaise that gives succour to terrorism to end.

***

I studied in the great Maharaja’s college of Mysore University which had a British principal. This living legend who was opposed to the Quit India movement, did not allow the police to raid the College without his permission. That was the story handed down by generations of students. In his eyes, the “erring” students were under his care. He was of the opinion that all students were under the care of the head of the University, and s/he must play the role of a parent.

I cannot make this point better than my friend and fellow writer Mukul Kesavan:

“I have a son who, in less than two years, will go to university. If, god forbid, he finds himself in police remand for whatever reason (murder, armed robbery, menacing the faculty, fraud), I’d want his University to behave as if it were acting in my place, in loco parentis. I would expect the proctor of the University to liaise with the station house officer to make sure that such rights of visitation as he might have in that ghastly circumstance were given him, to hire a lawyer to see if he could be released on bail, and if the nature of the alleged offence didn’t allow that, to try to have him transferred to judicial custody.

“Police remand is a dreadful form of imprisonment in India; unlike judicial custody where the procedural restraints of prison manuals apply, the police in their station-house lockups have a free hand in working suspects over. Any university that washes its hands of its students the moment they are arrested by the police because it doesn’t want to be associated with notoriety or (as in this case) the taint of terrorism is a cringing and wretched institution undeserving of a citizen’s respect or a parent’s trust.”

Prof. Mushirul Hasan, as vice-chancellor, has stood by the traditions of this great University. The founding fathers of this institution were inspired not only by the anti-colonial Islamic activism of Khilafat, but some of them belonged to the politically radical section of Western educated Indian Muslim intelligentsia.

It is important for me that both Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi, who were skeptical of the European ideal of a strong, centralized nation-state, built on the notion of ‘one language, one religion, one race’, imagined India as a great civilization of multiple cultures and religions and yet united in an advaitic sense: they blessed this institution.

Let me quote again Mukul Kesavan to make clear what is at stake in our times now:

“When people, policemen and political parties buy into the narrative of a priori Muslim guilt, they run the risk of turning this remarkable republic into an ordinary, ugly, majoritarian State.”

I know how some of my Muslims friends have begun to feel these days. The media is largely responsible for this.

When any arrest is made for suspected terrorism, you invariably hear a Muslim name. Then you are told that the arrested have confessed.

Who will not confess under police torture?

I do not know if I would not confess to acts that I am not guilty of if I am subjected to physical and mental torture. This so-called “confession” is not valid evidence, however, in a court. By the time we learn that the arrested person is not guilty, the damage has been done.

It is an assault on our psyche to be informed everyday that a Muslim has been caught by the police or killed in an ‘encounter’. We never know whether the encounter could have been avoided. How can the dead speak of what really took place? There is a constitutional guarantee that every ‘encounter’ killing is homicide unless proved otherwise through an impartial and transparent enquiry.

Our nation-state does not seem to take this provision seriously for everything is okay if you can generate a mass hysteria.

In my state of Karnataka, I now hear everyday that the “master-mind” of the terror attacks has been caught. If we doubt the authenticity of the story we are considered unpatriotic and anti-national. This surely is the beginning of fascism.

As a citizen I want to ask this question: Why should the media give out names of all the arrested under suspicion before they are proved to be guilty? Some restraint is necessary in a civil society, for, even after they are cleared of their guilt, the damage is done. Many like me have begun to feel that we are living in a nightmarish Kafkaesque world.
The whole nation seems to be neurotic.

The rulers have to prove that they are efficient and therefore I have a suspicion that they randomly pick someone to create an illusion of safety among the citizens. (Any party in power or in opposition desiring to capture power has the next election in view.)

This feeling “safe and secure” is also a momentary illusion, for, tomorrow you hear again of some terrorist attack and of more Muslim names getting arrested. We are also shown on TV channels dangerous explosive material supposed to be in their possession for bomb making.

Do we believe in the much-hyped “Breaking News” of the TV channels? Yes and No. Feeling torn between belief and suspicion, even as one recognizes their need to sensationalize and closely compete for TRP ratings, is itself a mental harassment for common citizens like me.

Don’t we have children whom we want to return safely from school?

The harassed police are also under pressure from their nervous political bosses to find the guilty as quickly as they can. The inhuman terrorists, who abuse the word ‘Islam’, also know how poor the intelligence network in the country is; and the State seems to be serving their interest in arresting anybody who has a Muslim name, for, the terrorists hope to demoralize the rest of the Muslim community in the hope that they would join them, or at least sympathize with them. They carry such attacks in a Muslim country like Pakistan too. This is the story of powerful Bhasmasura, who tries to destroy his creator. This is true of the policy pursued by the USA for hegemony in the world; they have to now suffer for their karma.

The minorities are thus alienated from the mainstream of our nation.

If you are a Muslim you can hardly get a rented house in a decent middle-class locality in the IT city of Bangalore. On learning the name, they are politely told that the house has already been taken.

With the elections round the corner, Hindu rioters—a safe word for the Hindu communalists to mark their difference from Islamic fundamentalists—are attacking churches.

In a Kannada newspaper, one with the largest circulation and owned by a prominent Indian newspaper group, published a few days ago an irrational and abusive article on the evil designs of Christians to annihilate the Hindu religion, which had the full support of their leader Sonia Gandhi. The article was right in the front page, which continued in the inner pages. The excuse was that by publishing the article the issue of conversion had been opened for impartial debate. Some months ago, the same paper conducted an SMS campaign against me for criticizing a communally poisonous novel against Islam by this very author, who has now launched himself against the Christians.

I must however observe here that despite such psychological war, thousands of our fellow citizens go about living their lives and caring for their children and the old. The truly religious—among both Muslims and Hindus—are pious and compassionate. Otherwise there would have been utter chaos and anarchy in our country.

I feel it is also time all of us, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, did a serious exploration of what constitutes the fundamentals of Islam. This is necessary to understand the core of Islam, and, more importantly, to extricate Islam and Muslims all over the world from the clutches of religious bigots; protect it from misrepresentations of the Western media and all its lackeys; and to highlight the dynamism of Islam as religion and philosophy.

Great scholars like Maxime Rodinson, Edward Said, Mohammad Arakoun, Ziauddin Sardar, Alam Khundmiri, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan and activists like Asghar Ali Engineer have all done this. Only such an attempt would ever resituate (sic) Islam for all concerned without which ugly stereotypes and distortions and misrepresentations about Islam and Muslims cannot be confronted.

It is also equally significant to erase the unfortunate gap that exists now between well-meaning secularists and traditional believers, often dubbed as religious fanatics. In difficult times such as ours the conflicts/ tensions/ antagonism between genuine secularists and profoundly religious people have to be removed for the good of all. Our great crisis revolves round this aspect too. Otherwise, stereotypes and prejudices would make the situation almost impossible to deal with.

The Christians have at least the West to speak for them, but Indian Muslims have none. President Bush in a Freudian slip perhaps had declared a crusade against them with the support of feudally ruled Muslim states. Hindus like me who have come under the influence of Gandhi, Ramana, and Paramahamsa who in search of a spiritual realm went beyond any organized religion, now feel threatened. The nature of Hindu civilization, nurtured for more than 2,000 years by disbelievers, for instance like the Buddha, may also be destroyed by cynical supporters of a majoritarian state.

There is a cynical calculation, more so in some parties, less so in others, in dividing Indian people on communal lines for the sake of creating safe vote-banks. It is difficult to create a solid Hindu vote bank for they are divided on caste lines.

In the past, during the struggle for freedom and even earlier, there were many reformative movements to fight against casteist hegemony among the Hindus and unite them as a people.

One of the greatest of them, Sri Narayana Guru of Kerala got self-esteem and dignity for what was then a semi-untouchable community of toddy tappers. The Guru was a great advaitin himself. For him the untouchable Chandala who brought about a change of heart in the great Adi Shankara was not Shiva in disguise as the myth tells us, but literally a Chandala. Thus he was a “literalist” advaitin.

In Karnataka we had a great movement for social justice and unfettered search for spiritual truth in the 12th century. The great poet of that movement, Basava, thought of the dying human body as a temple of the living God which lasts, paradoxically, longer than the seeming solidity of the stone and mortar built temple. He also fought for social justice and equality and got a Brahman girl married to an untouchable. Gandhiji himself was a great reformer.

The paradox is this: now the unity of the Hindus is sought to make our state a majoritarian state. In this seeking of a united Hindu vote bank there is of course no spiritual purpose, although there is a show of festivals and pilgrimages (like the Datta Maala in Chikamagalur).

Last year, in another great institution for which Gandhiji was the founder and Chancellor until his death, the Gujerath Vidyapeeth, I spoke of a genuine search for a spiritual realm, beyond the boundaries of organized religion. This is about the three urges—I call them hungers of the soul following a great saint philosopher Simone Weil— that animated the Gandhian era of our country. They are, hunger for equality, hunger for the spiritual, and hunger for modernity. Writers like me all over the country were inspired by these urges.

Solution to the merely physical hunger for equality appears to be within our reach today. But equality as hunger of the soul is not easily satiated unless it gets coupled, as it does in some great sages of all times — with the other hunger, the spiritual hunger. Both these hungers have their origin in the feeling that all forms of life are sacred and our routine quotidian existence in the temporal world is boring unless it glows with a transcendental meaning.

Consumerist paradise can ultimately prove to be dull and tediously repetitive. Great writers of the West have shown how listless and nauseated the human person is in his civilization.

Therefore, when one is deeply animated by these two hungers, as if the two hungers were the same, one becomes profoundly impatient with the existing social system, the existing structures of religion as well as the developmental dreams unleashed by science and technology, for this world doesn’t belong to man alone.

This twin-hunger is what distinguishes our great saint poets of mediaeval times—Basava, Tukaram, Kabir and Akka Mahadevi. In our own times, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and B.R. Ambedkar—to take some examples at random – exemplify this hunger for equality as well as spiritual hunger. Spiritual hunger may be a better term than hunger for God because I can then include a fierce critic of organized religion like Ambedkar in it.

Who is not familiar with the person of Ambedkar in European clothes (symbolizing modernity) who fought an incessant battle for equality and dignity of the Dalits? But it is the same Ambedkar who in his later years embraced the compassionate Buddha. This was not in contradiction to his social commitment but as a continuation of his struggle on another timeless dimension.

There is a moving picture of him, although not so popular as the Ambedkar in western dress, in Buddhist robes and shaven head. Those who consider both these pictures of Ambedkar as intensely connected would understand how difficult, yet how beautiful, it is to connect the hunger for equality and human dignity which seeks ruthless political action in the temporal world outside, with spiritual hunger which seeks fulfillment in an inward silent struggle. This is what makes Gandhiji and Ambedkar complementary, despite their differences.

I am not able to say the same about the contradiction between the ideas of Veer Savarkar for a strong nation state, and Gandhiji’s dream of gram swaraj. They are irreconcilable, and we see enough proof of that in our troubled times in India.

The last point I wish to make is this: After such trauma and violence in Gujarat, the country seems to have forgotten the role played by Narendra Modi in making Gandhi’s Gujarat almost a nightmare for Muslims. He is now a hero for all those who believe in Development.

Every political party speaks of Development and the industrialists and multinationals know that a majoritarian state where dissent is curbed is the best site for development. No political party seems to speak of Gandhiji’s ideal of Sarvodaya, an economic policy that would even benefit the last poor person. The suicides of agriculturists are not taken seriously; their death does not affect the sensex.

Those of you who graduate today from this great institution should ponder over what we as citizens can do to combine development with the welfare of all. Development should disassociate itself from an unabashed consumption and its need of an authoritarian state where the majority can rule ruthlessly, suppressing every form of dissent.

Please don’t think of what I just said as a cliché ridden advice; the whole world is in an economic crisis following the American model of development and consumption; an ecological disaster is ahead of us arising from our greed-driven consumption; violence in our societies has never been effectively curbed by counter-violence.

Gandhiji’s faith in non-violence and truth being the same is not just an ideal; it is a practical and sensible path for not only individuals, as perceived conveniently by many of us, but for nation-states too.

Thank you for listening to my words spoken with a feeling of anxiety and personal urgency. Forgive me for not being able to give you a proper academic talk suiting the solemn occasion.
Source : Churumuri
Thank you Churumuri...!!!!

Welcome, Muqeeth....!!

Here is a good news to the blogging world.
My beloved friend, philosopher and guide Muqeeth Mujtaba Ali has arrived. He has started his own blog..! You can read him in this blog.
Muqith is a teacher. He teaches Arabic. He is attached with Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. He had been zonal president of SIO which is the students wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind.
He has a powerful pen. He writes beatiful. His language is flowery. You would love to read him. I welcome him wholeheartedly.