BRICKBATS

Modi, a friend of Muslims?

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s newfound love for Muslims has become an embarrassment for his own
party.

At a recently held meeting of the doctors’ cell in Gujarat the party not only ensured that there were a good number of Muslim doctors present but also issued a statement saying that doctors of the community were making a beeline for the BJP.

Party sources claimed that this special emphasis on Muslims was at Mr Modi’s insistence. “He wants to be perceived as pro-Muslim,” said a party member. This has led to a whisper campaign in the BJP, as many feel that even the Congress did not “appease” Muslims this blatantly.

A senior doctor, who is also a member of the BJP cell, pointed out: “Till now, doctors were simply professionals. Nobody segregated them as Hindus or Muslims. But Gujarat is now dividing professionals too.”

The Asian Age, April 18, 2011

Not really, say Gujarat’s Muslims

The 2010-2011 final examinations are almost over and the admission process for the new academic year is in
full swing. But the ambitious Muslim students who want to pursue higher studies are down in the dumps. Six years have passed since the central government under a prime minister’s scheme started offering pre-matriculation scholarships every year to hundreds of boys and girls of minority communities in all states.

In view of the population of five million Muslims in Gujarat, some 60,000 students are eligible for these scholarships but the land of the Mahatma is the only state which has steadfastly refused to implement the scheme thus depriving thousands of schoolchildren of the financial aid. According to Gyasuddin Shaikh, a local Congress legislator, the Narendra Modi government does not want to chip in with its share of just 25 per cent of the total amount of the scholarships, which comes to merely Rs 12.5 million annually.

No wonder, even as Modi continued to make desperate attempts to woo Muslim leaders in Gujarat ahead of next year’s assembly elections, the Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) hurriedly called a meeting of Muslim leaders to discuss the injustice being done to minority students. According to them, Modi had taken a particular view three years ago, at the National Development Council meeting in Delhi in December 2007, where he declared that giving scholarships to minority students was discriminatory against other backward sections of society.

A BJP leader said Modi wanted to change his anti-minority image but, shrewd strategist that he was, he wanted some assurance from minority leaders of their support and would announce his decision ‘at an opportune time’. Currently only those minority students get scholarships whose families earn less than Rs 11,000 a year, a criterion which will make no student eligible.

Khaleej Times Online, April 17, 2011

Three held for ‘purifying’ Dalit’s office

The Kerala police on Wednesday (April 20) arrested three officials of the state registration department for cleansing the office of the inspector-general of registration with cow dung and water. Former inspector-general of registration AK Ramakrishnan had complained last week that a section of officials had cleansed his office and official car after his retirement from the service on March 31.

Hailing from a scheduled caste community, he had complained that the ritual was held to ‘purify’ the office premises after his exit. Blaming the department officials, he said they bore a personal grudge against him, as he refused to bend on several occasions. Since he was a Dalit, the ritual was held to insult his dignity, he added.

The Kerala State Human Rights Commission has sought a detailed report from the state registrar general. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has also sought a report from the state.

“On the day of my retirement some officials burst crackers and distributed sweets in the office. The next day office furniture and car were cleansed with dung and water,” he said. For Hindus, cow dung is sacred and they believe that it has got some purifying properties.

Hindustan Times, April 21, 2011

Convert or go to hell

Karachi: Twenty-three-year-old Zain (name changed to protect privacy), a Catholic Christian, was admitted to
the emergency ward of the Civil Hospital, Karachi, after he was shot and wounded as a passer-by in crossfire. While his worried parents and sister stood around waiting for the doctor’s verdict, men in green turbans and high shalwars swooped down on Zain. “Brother, you must denounce your infidel ways. Kalima padhein (recite the Kalima),” they told the young man who was barely conscious and obviously in immense pain. “Become a Muslim and god will forgive you all your transgressions against him. Die a Muslim!” Zain’s 17-year-old sister pleaded with them once to leave the family alone. “My brother is in pain. Please, let us take care of him,” she said. In response, one of the men turned around and gruffly told her to shut up. “Do not interfere in god’s work,” she was told.

Such scenes are no longer an anomaly at government hospitals in Karachi: men from various religious factions – the Tablighi Jamaat in particular – stalk the hallways of emergency wards, hoping to earn ‘sawab’ by converting non-Muslims on their deathbeds. In their quest for supposed divine rewards, they ignore the pleas of the families to be left alone with their loved one, as well as any pain that the patient might be in. Zain’s parents pulled their daughter aside. “We know the consequences of interfering,” his father, who works as a mechanic, said quietly after the men had left when Zain, who had lost consciousness by then, did not respond.

“These people are like vultures; they do this to everyone. If we try to stop them, they will accuse us of maybe insulting their religion. We don’t want to be charged with blasphemy. It will be our word against theirs. Who will listen to us?” he asked. Zain wasn’t the only victim. The group of green-turbaned men went around to every bed, asking attendants of patients if they were Muslim. If they replied in the affirmative, they were asked to recite the Kalima to ‘prove’ it. It must be noted that these attendants were already harassed – most of the patients in the ward were in critical condition; they were either victims of roadside or household accidents or had gunshot wounds that needed attention.

Nurses in the area, meanwhile, pretended to look the other way. “We’re already understaffed and have too much to deal with. We can’t handle this additional headache. Let them do what they want. The patients’ attendants can deal with them,” they said.

Similar scenes are repeated regularly at every government-run hospital in the city. While security at these institutions is minimal, even the guards that are present don’t try to stop the evangelists. “Who are we to interfere in the work of god?” Saleem, a guard on duty outside the emergency ward at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, shrugged helplessly. “If someone converts to Islam this way, we will get sawab too. These men help the patients and their families get spiritual peace.”

“We wish they’d leave us alone,” Zain’s father maintained. “If my son wanted to convert, he would have done so on his own. What’s the point of harassing someone who is obviously already in pain? Whose god would allow that?”

Urooj Zia in Pakistan Today, April 1, 2011