|
Ram Jethmalani Speech July 28th 2007
|
Thursday, Feb 18, 2010
|
|
| |
Speech of Ram Jethmalani
Aligarh Movement in the new Millennium and Education of Minorities in India
July 28th 2007
Cleveland Ohio USA
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
It gives me great pleasure to be here today amongst distinguished ladies and gentlemen who owe a good part of their intellectual equipment to the high class teaching that was imparted by distinguished scholars at the Aligarh Muslim University in India.
I was born in 1923 and Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan had finished his glorious tenure of eighty years on this Planet a quarter of century before. I became a qualified lawyer in 1941 and it is, as far as my memory goes, at or about that time that as a student of Indian History, I had valuable and refreshing information about the venerable and enviable life of one of the great Indians our country had produced in the previous century. He lived between 1817 and 1998.
Most of you are perhaps more familiar with the details of his life than I have ever been. Therefore, I will not regale you with those, however, interesting their recall to memory is even today.
I will refer to only a few prominent ones which in my opinion greatly influenced his thinking and course of action. This sensitive young man could not have failed to be influenced by what was happening to one Islamic country after the other. European powers were grabbing them subjugating them and exploiting
them as colonial powers always did France occupied Algeria in 1830, Britain occupied Eden in 1839. Tunisia was occupied in 1881 and Egypt in 1882 and Sudan in 1889. This humiliating process had not ceased on the death of this great man but continued even thereafter. Libya and Morocco were occupied in 1912 and in 1915; The Sykes-Picot agreement divided the territories of the moribund Ottoman Empire which had committed the crime of being on the side of Germany during the First World War. Muslims in the Balkans, Russia and Central Asia became subjects of the new Soviet Union. Apart from this subjugation the West managed to establish control over the economy, the oil, and other resources of vast areas in the Muslim world. In 1948 Palestine was divided by the United Nations and the international community.
Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan doubtless shared fully the feeling of humiliation of all thinking Muslims in its full intensity. They were exercised that something terribly tragic was happening in Islamic history. The suicide bombers of modern times show at least to some Muslims that the community is pitted against hopeless odds.
The Muslim experience inside India was equally depressing. Though there was a titular Moghal ruler in Delhi, he was a king without troops and without subjects. The real ruler was East India Company which propagated the fiction that it was ruling on behalf of the Mughal kings. Every body knew that he had neither power nor riches. The Muslim nobility and professional elites - the Sharif would drown their sorrow by privately sneering at Britain's presence. Some turned to sycophantic poetry and others nostalgically recalled the by-gone days of phenomenal Muslim glory.
The decline of the Mughal emperor and the annoying arrogance of the British officers of the Company had a peculiar impact on the Muslim theologians, the Ulema. They were habituated to political patronage for more than five centuries. They had always avoided conflict with the temporal rulers. Now that the Christians had occupied the centers of temporal power, the world of the Ulema had almost been turned upside down. Writing of this period Jawaharlal Nehru has recorded:-
Moslems were especially affected as they were, as a group, more feudal than the Hindus and were also the chief beneficiaries of the 'muafis'. Among the Hindus there were far larger numbers of middle class people engaged in trade and commerce and the professions. These people were more adaptable and took to English education more readily. They were also more useful to the British for their subordinate services. Moslems avoided English education and, in Bengal, they were not looked upon with favor by the British rulers, who were afraid that the remnants of the old ruling class might give trouble. Bengali Hindus thus acquired almost a monopoly in the beginning in the subordinate government service and were sent to the Northern provinces. By contrast, the Muslims resorted to rebellious actions. They viewed the growing British influence as a direct threat to Islam. As one eminent historian has recorded:-
"A new element had come to be introduced into the social situation of the Indian Muslims; it was the well known Pan-Islamic Movement initiated and organized by Jamal-ud-din Al-Afghani (1839-97). The declared objective of this Movement was the union of all Islamic states under a single Caliphate and a strong Muslim empire which should be able to liberate all Muslims from western cultural and political domination and resist western economic intervention and exploitation. Jamal-ud-din Al-Afghani visited India and went round a number of places meeting a good many leaders of the Indo-Muslim society". It is in this background that one must now look at the events of 1857 when Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan was just forty years old events which have come to be retrospectively described as India's 'first war of independence'.
In my view it was nothing of the kind. Out of the vast territory of India, the area involved in these events was a small part of Indo-Gangetic plain roughly the land between Lahore and Lucknow. The Sikhs, the Gorkhas and the Rajputs not only did not participate but fully helped the Company's forces to suppress the rebellions. The igniting match was neither India's independence nor even consciousness of threatened Indian Nationhood. On May, 11 Indian troops in Meerut mutinied killed their officers and marched on Delhi. Hindus resented the threat to the caste system and low emoluments. Most of the third Cavalry Regime refused to handle new cartridges which they thought contained cow and pig fat thus offending both Hindus and Muslims.
Incredible acts of cruelty took place on both sides. Delhi was recaptured by British forces in September. Lucknow held on till March of the next year. Considering that the Nawabs of Lucknow who were notoriously fond of the exquisite and exotic and had been dissipated like most oriental despots should have shown such tenacity is remarkable. Two notable non-Muslim figures deserve mention not because they showed any deep involvement by the Hindu majority but precisely because they were just exceptional. One is Nana Sahib and his protégé Tantya Tope and the other is Rani Laxmi Bai of Jhansi. The former operated in Kanpur and eventually escaped to Nepal. The Rani was a remarkable woman respected by every one who came in contact with her. She was comparatively young and possessed of considerable feminine charms and a remarkably fine figure. She hardly played a significant roll in the rebellion but she had to fight rival claimants to her husband's defunct title and some neighboring Rajput Rajas who invaded Jhansi on behalf of the British. She raised troops and fought them. Her military talents and leadership were not in fighting the British but fellow Indians. When the British captured Jhansi the lady was no where to be found. But she was then seen fighting in Gwalior where she died a death of a heroine which she undoubtedly was. While walking the ramparts of the city she was hit by a spray of bullets as the British launched their attack. She was cremated nearby, 'the only man among the revels', according to one of her British admirers and adversaries. The net result of the rebellion was that Victoria became the queen of India and India's Governor General became her Viceroy. The fiction of Mughal Rule thus finally ended. The unfortunate Mughal king was jailed in Rangoon and died composing heart rending poetry.
What was Sir Sayyid Ahmed doing during these tumultuous times? Sir Ahmed was a Munsiff Magistrate at Bijnor. Many English officers and Christian men, women and children had sought refuge in the town in fear of being done to death by the Muslim insurgent Mohammad Khan. Sir Ahmed worked night and day to save the lives of these fear stricken foreigners.
To him Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan had said earlier "By god Nawab Sahib I say that the Britih sovereignty cannot be eliminated from India". Sir Ahmed was plainly right but fortunately his prophecy lasted for ninety years only.
The British quickly rewarded him and for years spoke of him as their 'foremost loyal Mohammadan'. This however did not make Sir Ahmed happy. His misery was part guilt and part sorrow. He had after all taken the British side against his own people. He had encouraged Bijnor's Hindu landlords to defeat Nawab Mohammad Khan. He was so bitter that he not only rejected the offer of a estate by the grateful British but he seriously contemplated migration to Egypt, a decision which he did not execute explaining that he remained to share the troubles of his Kaum.
This word kaum is an ambiguous word but Sir Sayyid Ahmed obviously meant the Muslim community and neither the Indians in general nor Ummah the Moslems of the world. He expressly rejected the sovereignty of the Turkish Khalifate over the Muslims of India. They were the worst sufferers when the mutiny was suppressed.
Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan had arrived at one conclusion: that his Kaum's future lay in reconciliation with the British which he thought was for India's good too.
In his short epigram called Asbabe Bagawate Hindi he pointed out with great candor the errors of the British Raj. He pleaded for the ruler - subject cordiality of the Akbar Era. Two years later he produced another booklet called 'Loyal Mahomedans of India', pleading with the British that not all Muslims were guilty of sedition and rebellion. He even founded the society which came to be known as the Scientific Society of Aligarh through which he hoped to bring knowledge and literature of the nations of the Western world within the reach of the immense masses of the people of the Eastern. The Duke of Argyll, Secretary of State for India, was its patron. The declared motto was "Educate, educate, educate".
I hope these words sound a bell. Archangel Gabriel visited the Prophet in his desert cave on Mount Hira. Did he not tell him to read? When the Prophet said he could not read, did he not repeat - Read! Read! Read!. I am sure this familiar story inspired the University motto.
It is at or about this time that Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan when reprimanded declared to his friend Shakespeare a local British bureaucrat:
"Now I am convinced that both these communities will not join whole-heartedly in anything… On account of the so-called "educated" people, hostility between the two communities will increase immensely in the future. He who lives will see."
I do not believe that Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan had accepted the inevitability of a parting of ways by Hindus and Muslims of India. Nor was he predicting much less pleading for the partition of India. His later actions showed that he wanted the bridge to be gulfed between the two by intensive modern education of the Moslems. He was most anxious that Muslims should not be humiliated like the last Mughal Emperor. His remark to Shakespeare was only an angry portrayal of the prevalent ground reality. Even, his anger was not totally without good cause. He was rightly incensed by irrational hostility to growth of Urdu by some Hindi fanatics. No wonder very soon he undertook a trip to England to learn more about British culture, society and politics. There again he made a remark which should be considered irresponsible and unfortunate. Said he:
" Without flattering the English, I can truly say that the natives of India, high and low, merchants and petty shopkeepers, educated and illiterate, when contrasted with the English in education, manners and uprightness, are as like them as a dirty animal is to an able and handsome man'. These remarks were published in the Aligarh Institute Gazette. They certainly diluted Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan influence and Appeal. But he drew no distinction between Moslems and Hindus. It must also be said that Anglomania had overtaken almost the entire social and intellectual elite of India. Derision of Indian culture was a common failing and token of their Europeanization. Macaulay's reforms of 1830 had ensured this development. All education was already in English. Ram Mohan Roy had initiated this change. A reaction set in but much later when some one realized that Europeanization would not convert India into Europe but only a distorted India. The British, continued to see in him a reconciler between them and the Muslims of India. They assisted him in bringing to his community the blessings of modern education in Western science and literature.
Governor Miur released 75 acres of land in Aligarh City and Lord Northbrook, the Viceroy made a generous financial contribution. Lord Lytton, his successor, laid the foundation stone in January 1877. The Sikh ruler of Patiala and the Hindu ruler of Vizianagaram and other less prominent Hindus made their humble contribution to the founding of the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College which offered arts, science and law courses in English.
Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan was totally opposed to this education being imparted in the local vernaculars. He wanted English to forge the unity of India. He could visualize the dangers of linguistic and regional chauvinism.
Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan clarified that he did not wish to impose his understanding of Islam on anybody and that the education in the College will be without prejudice to the religion of the students. He rigorously opposed the interference of Government in the running of the college.
I would be less than honest if I fail to mention Sir Sayyid Ahmed's views which greatly impinged upon later Indian politics and lend some plausibility to the charge that Sir Ahmed was a separatist. At one place he declared:-
"Now suppose that all the English were to leave India. Then who would be rulers of India? Is it possible that two qaums - the Muslim and Hindu - could sit on the same throne? Most certainly no. It is necessary that one of them will conquer the other and thrust it down".
When Lord Ripon's Local Self-Government Bill was before the Council Sir Sayyid Ahmed made a successful plea for separate nomination of Muslims to local boards and district councils. His speech on the occasion deserves to be quoted at some length:-
"The system of representation by election, in countries where the population is composed of one race and one creed, is no doubt the best system that can be adopted.
But, my lord, in a country like India, where caste distinctions still flourish, where there is no fusion of the various races, where religious distinctions are still violent, where education in its modern sense has still not made an equal or proportionate progress among all sections of the population, I am convinced that the introduction of the principle of election, pure and simple, (to) the local boards and district councils would be attended with evils of great significance…
The larger community would totally override the interests of the smaller community…. And the measures might make the differences of race and creed more violent than ever."
My view still remains that this was his response to existing reality which he hoped radically to change through the institution he was giving birth to and the kind of education he proposed to provide.
In dealing specifically with the subject of education of minorities, you will excuse me for dealing with only the Muslim minority. Each minority has its own traditions, its own beliefs and superstitions, social attitudes and religious dogmas and rituals. All these are relevant to evaluation of the educational reforms needed for a particular minority. I do not have either the time or the energy to deal with all the minorities or even the prominent ones. Having lived with Muslims all my life I find it comparatively easy to speak about them.
I hope you know that I was born in a small but important town called Shikarpur in the north of Sindh, now in Pakistan. It was a Muslim majority area but it had the distinction of a gentle culture born out of the synthesis of the two cultures Hindu and Moslem in which on the Hindu festival of Deepawali, Muslim children got new clothes and Hindu children got them only when Id was being celebrated. It was the land of the Sufis where Hindus worshipped at Moslem Khankas and shrines and Moslems worshipped at the Asthans and Deras of Hindu saints.
I must hasten to explain my own personal attitude to religion. Marx told us that religion is the opiate of the people. I think he was wrong. Opium suggests something which numbs you, makes you sluggish and often puts you to sleep. Far from being opium, it is an aphrodisiac for horror, Benzedrine for Bestiality. All the fleets of the world could easily swim in the spacious comforts of the ocean of innocent blood which has been split in the name of religion. The crusades, the inquisitions, the ignorance of the dark ages, terrorism and war are huge items on the debit side of its balance sheet. I concede that religion has brought some hope to the frustrated and forlorn and some comfort to those suffering from intensity of pain and cruelty. Religion has been at best a Placebo. I believe that kindness is all that this sad world needs. I have therefore a one line religion: "we must live a life governed by reason but inspired by love". When people ask me "do you believe that God exists?" My honest answer is I do not know. Like a Criminal Lawyer I am willing to give him the benefit of doubt; he perhaps exists but certainly not in the shape in which he is presented in the movies or in the minds of millions of men and women. I must share with you an interesting anecdote bases on the story of the Philosopher and Theologian. Sneered the latter: "Philosopher is like a blind man in a dark room, looking for a black cat which is not there". The Philosopher then retorted "That may be but the Theologian would have still found the cat". I prefer the Philosopher to the Theologian. I have still not been able to find answers to the three old questions which Epicureans asked many centuries ago. Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then why does evil still exist.
I am tempted to relate a significant incident in the life of Gautam Buddha. His cousin had shot a bird flying peacefully in the sky. The arrow had penetrated its body. Bleeding, it fell to the ground. The cousin claimed it by conquest but Buddha gently took up the bird, smoothened its ruffled feathers, removed the piercing arrow and applied soothing honey to the smarting wound. He brought back the bird to health and let it fly away in freedom. It is the highest religion, earnestly to strive to reduce the sum total of the world's suffering. We are to take things in our own hand. The Cynic said:
"I turned to speak to God
About the worlds despair
But to make bad matters worse
I found God was not there".
It he does exist, he has obviously forgotten that we humans exist. It is an interesting reflection that perhaps the great God suffers from Alzheimer's.
I have two preliminary observations to make and then we get to the main theme. India is a Democratic Republic and the preamble of its Constitution proclaims that it is a Secular Republic. Our Supreme Court has held that secularism is a basic feature of our Constitution and is a feature which cannot be destroyed or diluted even by the unanimous vote of both Houses of our Parliament. India as a State has no religion, in the normal sense in which the word religion is used, but we have not abolished religion. People of all faiths including agnostics and atheists are entitled to all the rights and privileges of a citizen. Every person is entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion. These rights are, however, subject to public order, morality and health. Minorities with a distinct language, script or culture of their own have the right to conserve the same and have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Hostile discrimination against any one on the ground of his religion is totally outlawed. It should be a matter of some interest to you that when the first draft of the constitution was prepared the right was confined to professing and practicing one's religion but at the instance of the minorities the right to propagate was also conceded to them. Of course this only means the right to convert others without the use of force or fraud. Obviously a secular republic cannot spend the tax payer's money on religious education of any kind. Religious minorities however can, if they so choose, but public funds can not be employed for the purpose. It is my view that it is the right and the duty of a secular republic to turn the minds of the young away from irrational religious beliefs and inculcate in them the spirit of genuine secularism. More than the majority which obviously means the Hindu majority it is the religious minorities in India who place a high value on its secularism as a protector of their identity, equality and dignity.
Fanaticism and fundamentalism are inconsistent with Indian secularism. If any religious dogma or practice offends morality, obstructs the prevention of disease and promotion of health or is productive of social divisiveness hatred and violence it must be vigorously suppressed.
The second observation that I have to make is that Indian democracy is as dear to the majority as to the minorities perhaps more so to the latter. Democracy is an exercise of equality and an exertion of people's sovereignty. The vote, freedom of dissent and the right of even vicious attack on the rulers are totally useless unless the individual citizen is armed with knowledge of how the country is being governed and whether it is being governed in the interest of the people or for filling pockets of corrupt rulers and counterfeit mediators between men and the gods.
A successful democracy requires the highest education of the citizen. It is trite that 'democracy without education is hypocrisy without limitation'. Right to education is, therefore, more fundamental than any other right. The Constitution of India so declares it. But the obligation of the State to provide free education is subject to its economic capacity. The right thus exalted to the level of fundamental right is in practice hardly capable of being enforced against the State which wastes its resources on corruption, war and weapons and pretends that it has not much to spare for enlightening the citizens. Education is that which nourishes the spirit of liberty. It is that spirit which is too sure that it is always right. It is that spirit which seeks to understand the mind of others men and women. Is that attitude which weighs the interest of others side to own without bias or prejudice. All this does not make the nineteenth century vision of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan irrelevant in the twenty first. It still retains its vigor and dynamism.
Let me now turn to the legacy of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan and share with you what I believe were the chief components of this priceless legacy:-
First: Religion and its teachings are not inconsistent with science and its view of the universe. He obviously meant - though with a view not to offend his audience he used the mildest terminology that in its peculiar domain science will prevail over the belief systems of religion. He did not accept the fatalistic Hindu belief that the stars alone determine our destiny as well as the Moslem belief in Kismet. His attitude to religion was that of a rational skeptic. I am sure he had read Gibbon who wrote "The various forms of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people to be equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful". He was perfectly aware of the history of religion. It had consistently been on the side of political power. The Vatican supported Mussolini and the over throw of Spanish democracy by General Franco. He dreaded a spiritual police state. Writing in the Khut bat-e- Ahmedia he advocates a critical review of the Hadith to ascertain their authenticity.
Second: He was clearly of the view that Moslems must revert to the old rationalist interpretation of the Holy Quran of the Mutazila School and turn their back on any inconsistent teaching. In this Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan incurred the opprobrious epithet of 'Nechari' for the Aligarh movement and the wrath of Egyptian Al Afgani. The latter indulged in violent denunciation. 'Nechariya' he wrote "is the root of corruption, the source of uncountable evils and the ruin of the country… The Necharis present themselves before the eyes of fools as the standard bearers of science but only give a wider range to treachery." This did not break Aligarh, or Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan; quite the contrary. But it certainly raised a serious dilemma for Indian Muslims. If they turned their back on international Islamic solidarity they would inevitably become full-fledged citizens of a united India and a powerless minority in the very land they had ruled as absolute masters. Ashraf Muslim - and to a lesser extent the Ajlaf too, could not digest this. This dilemma led to the partition of India and should no longer worry the Moslems of India. We should forget not that in the 40's, AMU did get involved in the Pakistan Movement and became a center of Muslim League politics. Through the rough course of Indian History, the two communities doubtlessly misbehaved with each other. Partition was a punishment. Only history will decide on who has fallen to the most severe and cruel part of it. Wisdom requires that not every Muslim and every Hindu should be implicated in the event of the past. Deep civic engagement will dull the painful ages of historical memories. Syed Ameeralis powerful book 'Sprit of Islam' is a classic of modernism and stands out as a luminous lighthouse of rational Islam.
Third: Indian Muslims must no longer look out of India and waste their energy on recovering their Arab Turkish or Persian roots but strive to be the most beautiful flower in India's bouquet of numerous religions, races and tribes. The Supreme and inexorable law of change is synthesis arising out of thesis and antithesis. Resistance to change is wholly contrary to the teaching of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan. It will be futile and perhaps suicidal.
I have no objection to Moslems looking back and trying to recapture their lost glory. But what was it that made Islam glorious? In just one sentence let me answer this question: It was the Moslems intellectual curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge; certainly not rule over others by war plunder bloodshed and rape.
A few days before Prime Minister Tony Blair of England gave up his office, he spoke to a gathering of Muslim intellectuals said to be moderates. He told them that the true meaning of Islam had been hijacked by some extremists and the authentic message of Islam needed to be heard loud and clear. Now while still in office he could not avoid polite and dull diplomacy otherwise he could have told them that hijacking he spoke about took place many centuries ago. The Prophet of Islam established his unique superiority over other god men by being the only one to preach that 'those who walked in search of knowledge walked in the way of God; that the ink of the scholar was more valuable than the blood of a martyr; fight against those who fight you but do not commit aggression'.
Muslims were at the zenith of their glory when they seriously heeded his sublime message. Islam civilized the west and rescued it from the darkness of the middle ages. Arabic literature had presented the best of Greek Philosophy. For three centuries Christianity saw Islam advance, saw it capture the Christian people and lands one after another, dominate Christian trade and commerce. Christians even suffered the humiliation of being called infidels. Unfortunately they jettisoned the message their decline started ending in the enslavement of virtually the entire Muslim world. In 1150 Caliph Mustanjid at Baghdad ordered and burned all the philosophic works of Avicenna, forty four years later Emir Abn Yusuf Yaqub - al Mansur, then at Seville ordered the burning of all works by Averroes; he forbade his subjects to study philosophy and urged them to throw into the fire all books of philosophy wherever found. Ibn Habib was put to death for studying philosophy. Contrast the great Sadi and Gazali and you will understand the tragedy that was overtaking Islam. After 1200, Islam shunned speculative thought. In the next century Muslims lost most of Spain; in the east the Crusaders captured Jerusalem and the Mongols took and destroyed Bagdad.
Civilized comfort attracts barbarian conquest. Islam suffered a devastating blow to its magnificent civilization.
It was bad luck for Moslems and the rest of the world that in the late 17th century Arabia produced an evil person Mohammed Ibin Abdul Wahhab. Though he rightly concluded that the decline of the Muslim world was attributable to a departure from the true word of the Prophet he grievously misunderstood the 'word'.
Picking on a stray line in the Holy Book he convinced himself that the Book had decreed the death and annihilation of all Mushrikhun. He then included amongst them Christians, Jews, Shiites, Hindus and many others. All these had forfeited their right to live. In the spring of 1802, twelve thousands of his followers invaded Southern Ottoman, Iraq; entered Karbala, massacred 4000 Shiites, ransacked their holy shrines including the tomb of Hussain, the martyred grandson of the Prophet himself. They looted the city and carried off its wealth on the backs of 4000 Camels. One of his descendants Latif a Saudi Judge promoted a religious movement with the same philosophy and called it Ikhiwan.
In 1928 was born the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt with tremendous ideological affinity. Maulana Mawdudi of Pakistan was a follower and collaborator.
The Saudi Royal family patronized all these with massive financial and other supports. Osama Bin Laden attacked the Saudi Government for not sufficient commitment to the Wahabi teaching. Only when he became a nuisance he was deprived of Saudi nationality in 1994.
What happened on September 11th 2001 was a declaration of war on the entire free world - more dangerous than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Fifteen of the attackers were indoctrinated Wahabis and Saudi nationals.
How does one account for suicide squads, each member convinced of immediate entry into paradise and the company of enchanting Huris? A deadly combination of opium called Religion and Hashish can alone accomplish this. I have not investigated nor have I been informed by any one what awaits the female suicide bomber in Paradise! If you also believe in God, or his sake do not believe he is running a brothel. Martyrdom is the only way in which one can become famous without any ability or character.
Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan wanted to recapture the past - the glorious one during the first three centuries after the Prophet was no longer on this planet. This recapture of the spirit of dynamism of a vibrant Islam does not mean forgetting the knowledge science has given us and becoming as ignorant and ill-informed as humanity was in the dark ages. Let us have the courage to recall that not one founder of the three major religions of the Middle East knew that the earth was round and revolved round the sun, that we did not fall off the earth due to a force called gravity that most disease is caused by bacteria and viruses that the 21st century will be the century of computers, cell phones, fax machines and man made satellites roaming in the vicinity of distant stars or that the world one day would wait in mortal fear of a nuclear holocaust.
What the education of the Muslim minority urgently needs is a dramatic improvement in the qualifications and character of teachers. It is unfortunate that most of the available teachers almost justify Oscar Wilde when he quipped 'those incapable of learning have taken to teaching'. The modern teacher must be a convinced secularist committed to maintaining a pluralistic society. Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan imported teachers from England. They had their British imperialist prejudices but they were the best the school or university could afford.
The sum total of the teacher's religious beliefs must be the barest minimum; a religion whose parameters are limited to answering questions which our small mammalian equipment called the brain cannot answer. He must know that philosophy raises some questions that cannot be answered and religion furnishes answers that cannot be questioned. Why was this universe created? Who created it? Where did humanity come from and where does it go after death. Is there a surviving soul and is there a cycle of births and deaths. Only on such questions it may be pardonable to take on faith answers by religious leaders without any scientific evidence in support.
These teachers must also be aware that poverty extreme inequality within a society and growing gaps between rich and poor societies and of course false religious indoctrination are the causes of conflict and brutal violence. The young minds must be trained to concentrate on removing these causes.
It is unfortunate that one of the shortcomings of democracy is that people and political leaders only debate short term issues which are likely to influence the course of the next election. The short term and the long term aims which the teachers must concentrate upon are reasonable prosperity for all global peace and human security. The teacher must by his moral influence persuade the politician to do likewise.
The teacher must let the community know that in controvertible historical evidence portrays women of Medina raising their heads from slavery and violence to claim their right to join as equal participants in the making of Muslim history when the Prophet was the political leader.
Women fled from Mecca by thousands to enter Medina because Islam promised equality and dignity for all men and women alike. Every woman, who came to Medina could gain access to full citizenship, the status of Sahabi, companion of the Prophet. Women freely entered into Councils of Muslim Umah to speak freely to the Prophet, to dispute with the men, fight for their happiness and to be involved in the management of military and political affairs. The Prophet's widow Ayasha years after his death took the battle field at the head of a male army which challenged the legitimacy of Khalifa Ali. Neither during the life of the Prophet nor after his death did she wear a veil or a Hijab. Thus Muslim cleric's terrorists and their followers who would condemn women to perpetual inferiority and compel them to conceal their countenance behind a veil or hijabs are a disgrace to the Prophet and insult to his beloved wife. Ayasha cannot be written out of the history of Islam. Keeping women out of Muslim politics has been a favorite pastime of even some known historians like Syed Al Afgani, whom I have mentioned earlier. The life of Ayasha is a lesson for Muslim women to stand up and fight.
Young Muslims must appreciate the majesty of Article 14 of the Indian Constitution. No hostile discrimination is permitted against women - just because they are women. I am one of those who believe that woman made civilization possible by constructing a home and tilling a field. No civilization was possible in the hunting stage. Woman domesticated man as she domesticated sheep and pigs. Man is woman's last domesticated animal. Did not the Prophet exhausted by disputes and battles finally die in the arms of his beloved wife?
Education is not imparted only by the teachers. It is also the duty of the intelligentsia. Those who are proud of the Aligarh movement must show the courage to warn all their compatriots that a society that produces suicide murderers in quantity is essentially committing suicide. Iran and Saudi Arabia are funding the entire world terror infrastructure. They can not over look the certainty that one day the terror that they spread will end up in their own backyard. Just look what is happening to Pakistan. The people of Pakistan are my kith and kin. I grieve in their misfortunes and wish them a better future. But they too to abandon the way of terror and war. They too have to emerge from the darkness of superstition and Jahaliat.
The scriptures are full of pleasing fables. Krishna had 16000 wives says "The Hindu". It is in Bethlehem not far from Jerusalem that we are informed that with the cooperation of an immaculately conceived virgin God was delivered of a son. Mohamed had a trip to heaven from Jerusalem on his horse Buraq and returned the same night. Enjoy these stories but do not allow your intellect to be subverted. That is the greatest tribute you can pay to the man whose memory you are commemorating at this Convention and whose legacy you want to preserve for posterity in the centuries to come.
Get rid of Fear, cultivate Courage.
Fear Believes - Courage doubts
Fear falls on earth and prays -
Courage stands erect and thinks
Fear retreats - Courage advances
Fear is barbarism - Courage is Civilization.
Fear believes in witch craft, devils and ghosts -
Courage is robust science.
I am an optimist and let me conclude with the melodious tarana by Majaz Lakhnawi a distinguish product of AMU.
Jao saara kajam la spz yahan
Aur saare jahan ka saaz yahan
Jo abar yahan se uthega, wo saare jahan par barsega.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|