U nion Minister for Minority Affairs Salman Khurshid has said that reservation for Muslims will be adjusted within the OBC quota. Is this, however, not un-Islamic? Prof M Mujeeb in his bookIndian Muslims has stated that Muslims are a biradri or brotherhood. The community is a political as well as a reli- gious society. Both these aspects have been regarded as inseparable because Islamic teaching insists upon the integration of the two faces of life. It ordains that the reli- gious and the worldly life should be organ- ised on the basis of the same values, that equality before god should be given expression in the form of legal and polit- ical equality. Evidently, Muslims cannot be divided into castes, some of whom can then share something that is meant for a Yadav or a Kurmi or a Nai or a Dhobi or a Kumhar etal. By now there are any number from these castes or professions who have become so prosperous that they would be embarrassed by even a hint of reservation. If the OBC were categorised by their vocation, as claimed by Mr Kamal Faruqi (Delhi Head of the Personal Law Board, in a recentlygiven interview on TV) a Brahmin who happens to be a tailor or a barber or a dhobi or a potter, would get the benefit of reser- vation? I knew several Muslim families in the Matiaburz locality of Kolkata who were Jatav before they converted. Would they be entitled to a share in the quota meant for Scheduled Castes? The Mandal Commission as well as the Bakshi Panch of Gujarat have stressed social backwardness as a criterion for being an OBC. Surely, in the biradri no Muslim is socially lower than any other. If it was oth- erwise, the Quran would have been violated especially Sura XXI, Ayat 92 which reads: Verily, this Brotherhood of yours is a sin- gle Brotherhood. (The Quran explained byA Yusuf Ali). In any case, the long experi- ence of Scheduled Castes reservation has shown that the average Dalit does not ben- efit; only the creamy layer does. Yet the leaders want reservation for Muslims. The Mandal Commission also made educational backwardness as a criterion. Literacy, the percentage of matriculation passed as well as the proportion of school dropouts as yardsticks of backwardness. Ifa group ofkshatriyas happens not to pass matriculation and drops out from school, would it qualify for backw ardness? These facts lead one to suspect that the Khurshid game plan is political, not social and in line with the strategy described byShaheed Suhrawardy, the Bengal Premier in 1946. In his letter dated September 10, 1947 addressed to ChaudhryKhaliquzzaman (Pathway to Pakistan) who succeeded Mohammed Ali Jinnah as the Muslim League president, he proposed that the community should continue to live in the best Islamic tradition connected with the League and holding fast to the two- nation theory. “In this alternative we shall have to be very strong and disciplined and must be ready to undergo sacrifices and must look to Pakistan for support and pro- tection. The Muslims should form them- selves into strong pockets. It is politicallydesirable as well as necessary for survival and also culturally desirable.” He went on to say that Pakistan has provided a home- land for the Muslims living in the majori- ty areas, but not a homeland for the Muslims of India. Evidently, reservations are a part of the grand strategy of separatism. Separatism was a theme song as early as 1906 when Sir Aga Khan and his 35-member delega- tion to Viceroy Minto sought separate elec- torates, reservation in jobs and establish- ment of a Muslim university. In the course of a century, Muslim universities have been founded, not only Jamia Millia Islamia but also one each at Murshidabad, Kishenganj, Ajmer, Bengaluru. Mallapuram and Patna are also in the queue. The consistency in the design for separatism is admirable. A separate Central Board for Madarsas on the lines of CBSE cannot improve the quality of learning but it would ensure a sep- arate curriculum. Darul Qazas or Sharia’h courts, which are already operating, are a parallel judiciary and clearly separate. The personal laws for the community are also separate and based on the sharia’h. Yet all other Islamic laws, including punishment for crimes, are ignored. Muslims readily fall in line with the Indian Penal Code and all other civil laws out of expedience. As if the string of Muslim universities, in existence as well as being set up, are not sufficient, the Government has been per- suaded to declare Muslim concentration districts, presumably to serve as Islamic island camps. In order to appease his vote- bank the Prime Minister has repeatedlydeclared ‘Muslims first’ as his policy. As if the National Minorities Commission was not sufficient, the Government was persuaded to have a Ministry for Minorities Affairs and the Minister has consistently been a Muslim, not a Christian, a Parsi or a Sikh. Prof Mujeeb has gone out of his way to emphasise that the Muslim community is at once political and religious; these two aspects are inseparable. To quote him: “The Indian Muslims have regarded themselves as a community, and primarily a religious community. In theory, if not always in fact , their judgement in regard to beliefs, polit- ical policies, social customs and the way oflife generally has been influenced by a con- cern to act as strictly as possible in accor- dance with the teachings of Islam.” Islam does not allow for distinctions within the community which is referred to as a biradrior brotherhood of equals. How can then the Muslim demand for reserved jobs and seats in educational institutions be met by giving them a quota within caste-based quotas? This inherent flaw in the solution offered by Salman Khurshid merits a closer look and debate PRAFULL GORADIA FRANCOIS GAUTIER W est Bengal has received consid- erable media attention in the past few years for its efforts in mod- ernising madarsas. Some commentators highlight the fact that several madarsas in the State have more Hindu than Muslim students. Other observers point to an ongoing experiment to gradually trans- form West Bengal’s madarsas into English- medium institutions. According to the president of the West Bengal Board ofMadarsa Education, the body entrusted with all things madarsa-related in Bengal, “States such as Trip ura, Bihar and Odisha have chosen to adopt the West Bengal model, ” and teams from “Bangladesh and Pakistan have also shown interest. ” Even Government support). Each grouping can further be divided into sub-categories. Government-su pported madarsas either exist as high madarsas (with a predominan t focus on mainstream secular subjects), or as senior madarsas (focussing primarily on religious subjects). Independent madarsas in turn consist of two subcategories: Secular-minded madarsas that are com- mitted (or at least open) to the prospect ofaccepting Government support, and reli- gion-oriented khariji madarsas that want nothing to do with the State. When an independent madarsa becomes recognised, it surrenders its autonomy to the State, agrees to include mainstream subjects in its curriculum, and madarsas are fundamentally opposed to the idea of affiliating with the State. Irrespective of size, wealth, or location, these institutions value their autonomy and are not easily distracted from the objec- tive of religious propagation. To suggest that the State has struggled to recognise khariji madarsas is an under- statement. According to data released byWBBME, the number of recognised madarsas in West Bengal increased from 508 in 2001 to 601 in 2011. But a closer look indicates that during this period WBBME only managed to add to its pool of high madarsas, while the number ofsenior madarsas remained unchanged at 102. This data tells us that in the last there are seven Deobandi khariji madarsas for every Government-run senior madarsa. Even if we (generously) assume that only the Deobandis (and no other sects) operate khar- iji madarsas, we see that the Government has control over no more than 14 per cent of the State’ s religion-oriented madarsas. Stories celebrating West Bengal’s madarsa modernisation efforts focus dis- proportionately on examples of high madarsas, without acknowledging the State’ s demonstrated incapacity to influ- ence khariji madarsas. Surely WBBME has its achievements. The body runs 601 schools, and works very hard to educate more than four lakh children. Though it deserves kudos for its role as a successful The other side of Bengal’s madarsa experiment Stories celebrating Bengal's madarsa modernisation efforts focus on high madarsas without acknowledging the State's incapacity to influence khariji madarsas, writes Nikhil Raymond Puri The lost history of Lumbini B uddhism was once upon a time preva- lent in India till about the 4th centu- ry AD. Many historians, both in India and abroad, have implied that it nearly total- ly disappeared from India, because it was slowly ‘swallowed’ back by Hinduism at the hands of spiteful Brahmins. Others have however pointed out that if Hinduism resisted the Muslim onslaught thanks to its Kshatriyas — the Rajputs, Marathas and Sikhs — Buddhism, because it made non-violence an uncompromising dogma, was literally wiped-off the face ofIndia in a few centuries, as it refused to oppose any resistance. For the Muslim soldiers, Buddhists, who adored statues and did not believe in Allah, were as much infidels as the Hindus, and they razed every single Buddhist temple (and also Jain temples, as the ruins below Fathepur Sikri have proved) they encountered, burnt all the precious libraries and killed tens of t hou- sands of monks, without encountering anyopposition. This is why you cannot find a single trace of Buddhist structures todayin India, save for a few stupas, which were too cumbersome to be destroyed. The history of the Islamic onslaught on Buddhism in India should be rewrit- ten. In 1193 CE, for instance, the won- derful Nalanda University was razed to the ground by Bakhtiyar Khilji, a Turkish Muslim invader on his way to conquer Bengal. He looted and burned the monastery, and killed hundreds or even thousands of monks. The shock of this event lives on in local cultural memory: The three libra ries of Nala nda — with books like the ones famous travellers famous Xuanzang and Yi Jing carried backto China —were so large that they smoul- dered for six long months. But most interesting is the history ofLumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, which is one of the four holy places of Buddhism. Lumbini is situated at the foothills of t he Himalayas in modern Nepal. In Buddha’s time, Lumbini was a beautiful garden full of green and shadysaltrees. The garden and its tranquil environs were owned by both the Sandyas and the Kolias clans. King Suddhodana, father ofGautama Buddha, was of the Shakya dynasty belonging to the Kshatriya or the warrior caste. In 249 BC, when the Emperor Ashoka visited Lumbini, it was a flourishing village. Ashoka constructed four stupas and a stone pillar with a fig- ure of a horse on top. The stone pil lar bears an inscription which, in English transla- tion, runs as follows: “King Piyadasi (Ashoka), beloved of devas, in the 20 year of the coronation, himself made a royal visit, Buddha Sakyamuni having been born here, a stone railing was built and a stone pillar erected to the Bhagavan”. Lumbini then remained neglected and forgotten for centuries. But in 1895, Feuhrer, a famous German archaeologist, discovered the great Ashoka pillar while wandering about the foothills of the Churia range. Further exploration and excavation of the surrounding area revealed the existence of a brick temple and a sandstone sculpture within the temple itself, which depicts the scenes ofBuddha’s birth. But there was great damage, which Feuhrer could not explain, except speculate that the place was once ransacked. Historian Bhuban Lal Pradhan believes that it was Sikandar Lodi (1489- 1517 AD) and Aurangzeb (1668-1701 AD) who were mainly responsible for the rav- age and subsequent desertion of the Lumbini and Kapilavastu regions. Nepalese rulers were helpless and even Mukund Sena (1782-93 AD), who ruled the region from Palpa, could do nothing to recover the religious glory of the site and the result was that this holy place was lost in the dense forest that grew over it. Later the name of Lumbini gradually changed to Rummindei and then to Rupandehi, the present name of the district. Since Feuhrer’s discovery, several excavations have been conducted and a large number of ancient relics have been brought to light which reveal that Lumbini was an important place ofBuddhist pilgrimage even during the time of the Mauryas. Now China is lead- ing a project worth $3 billion to trans- form the small town into a premier place of pilgrimage for Buddhists from around the world. Little Lumbini will have an air- port, highway, hotels, convention centre, temples and a Buddhist university. It’s not all about philanthropy, but also to under- mine the Dalai Lama’s influence in South Asia. Romila Thapar, India’ s most respect- ed historian, believes that because Buddhism challenged the very structure of the caste system, it was not liked by the upper castes who did not let it flourish. She also points a finger at the “policy of assim- ilation” of Hinduism, such as stating that Buddha is an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. But Romila Thapar is wrong. If it can be said that Adi Shankaracharya’s preach- ing the five-fold path ofbhakti got the Buddhist converts back into Hinduism, the reality is that Buddhism in India was wiped out by Islamic invaders and that Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautam, suffered great- ly in the process. Muslim invaders treated Buddhists as infidels and attacked their places of worship. They razed every single Buddhist temple they encountered, burnt libraries and killed monks. This is why we cannot find Buddhist structures in India, except a few stupas, and why Lumbini has been lost What quota if all are equal? 3rdeye 0 9 NEW DE LHI THURSDAY| JUL Y 28, 201 1
