M. Hasan
(Published in the Hindu on 19th 2010, p.14, Sunday Edition)
Fifty years ago, during the Ramadhan in my home town of Taranagar in western Rajasthan, plain millet breads, dal/potato shorba, coarse home made savainya, sugared water, dates and halwa, each from different homes, would come to mosque for Iftaar, ‘breaking of fast.’ Each crumb was eaten with gratitude to the Provider. Iftaar bonded the community spirit.
In a Nairobi mosque in a black neighbourhood (as also in Chardarwaza Dargah, Jaipur), Muslims from nearby neighbourhoods bring food for Iftaar shared by the poor and others together. Travellers and passer-by are asked to join in a spirit of fasting and sharing. This is Fellowship, common among religions of revealed books. It pleases Allah immensely, says a Sufi, as His children are fed together after fasting. (In Kerala grand-father of a friend never took dinner in Ramadhan till a traveller joined him. Worried villagers used to coax travellers to oblige them!)
Times are changing and so are the motives and magnitudes of Iftaars. Politicians in power ignore basic problems of Muslims, including threat to their lives and property. But they seek them for Iftaars. The Bush-Blaire duo led attack on Iraq and Afghanistan, killing thousands of innocent Muslims, including children and women, and damaging hospitals and homes, justified as collateral damages. The world, outraged, still agonizes. Unblinking Bush called his spin doctors. Shocking the world, Iftaar party was hosted in the White House! Dead bodies turned in graves in NJ, Iraq and Afghanistan. A gulf exists between outraged sea of bereavement and island of carpetbaggers.
Disturbing images of Iraq, Afghanistan, Gujarat, Mumbai and Srinagar keep crowding psyche of civil societies and Muslims. Ramadhan is a month of cleansing of body and mind by observing fast and austerity. Politicians have changed its pristine philosophy to a mechanism to exploit sentiments and creating divisiveness among Muslims, ignoring justice and governance for them, confronted with stubborn red lining, communal attacks, loss of life and property. But party must go on.
UPA president, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, hosts Iftaar party for Muslim leaders and dignitaries from Muslim countries. Unlike free mixing in mosque Iftaars, invitees are stratified by status: foreign dignitaries and senior cabinet ministers in the core circle, VIPs in the middle and the rest in outer circle. Wheelers and dealers manage to sneak in. Even a slot in the outer ring is statement of importance: ‘I was invited in Soniaji’s Iftaar Party!’ Party chiefs, governors and ministers host lavish Iftaar for dignitaries, politicians, and Muslim elites. Mounds of leftovers is wasted. Size and quality of crowd hugely satisfies the host. Investment in such Fellowship ‘improves’ political image, bringing electoral returns. This is the crux of the tamasha.
Other political formations are not behind in enticing Muslims for political harvesting. The JD (U) and SP supreme are at their best in Ifaar bonhomie. Iftaars gives new blood transfusions. Media reports the likes of the Advanis and Ataljis adorning skull caps and green pugrees foisted on them by over-enthusiastic and calculative Dargah heads. In their own perceptions, Muslims and political hosts are happy with the ‘conversion’ of the other! Party enthusiasts are ordered to bring in buses loaded with Muslims, preferably in skull caps and beards, from Jama Masjid and nearby towns. Expensive piping hot delicacies have their own magnetism. Though hardcore Hindutva elements fume and fret in private, BJP’s spin doctors smile at the spectacle without forgetting core communal agenda: abrogation of the Article 370, enforcement of Common Civil Code and Ram Temple at the demolished Babri Masjid site. Pragmatists counsel: Iftaar ki raftaar mein sab chalta hai! ‘All is permissible in race for Iftaar!’
Once a respectable Muslim leader sought suggestion for hosting Iftaar in Jaipur. Underlining its futility in Jaipur, I suggested him to host it rather in his constituency in poor Mewat region for true fellowship. It further endeared him. This Ramadhan a Rajasthan cabinet minister hosted a huge Iftaar in a five-star hotel in Jaipur, raising many eye brows. Who footed the bill was not a mystery: he holds a key portfolio. Some say it was a litmus test to judge solidarity among agitating Muslims who had announced boycott of Iftaar by politicians.
They are agitated because last July, following killing of one Meena tribal criminal by a Muslim criminal, just before Ramadhan, mobs attacked innocent Muslims in Sarada, Udaipur, in the presence of district administration. The mob was instigated by the RSS activists. Through Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad (VKP), Mewar is fast become a testing communal laboratory. During the curfew hours, seventy Muslim houses were burnt and looted. District Magistrate, IGP, SP and heavy posse of armed forces stood as spectators. According to the eminent scholar Asghar Ali Engineer, arson and looting didn’t happen in 2002 even in Gujarat areas where DM was present. But it has happened in Congress ruled Rajasthan. There are shining examples of law upholding Superintendents of Police in Gujarat and Rajasthan (Sarada July 2004 and Balesar May 2010) who performed their constitutional duties firmly, containing riots to save Muslim lives and property. Oddly, these SPs were transferred immediately by Rajasthan BJP in 2004 and Congress in 2010, apparently playing, respectively, hard and soft Hindutva cards. Ironically, BJP replaced SP Dr. Ravi Prakash Meharda by Dinesh MN (now in Gujarat jail in the Sohrabudin case).
Most Muslims of Sarada were herded in the police station before the mayhem began.only their houses were searched for arms. Police locked a family in two rooms and let the mobs set the house on fire. An elderly woman sobbingly narrated this harrowing experience in a Jaipur public meeting. Sarada Muslims were rendered homeless and jobless during the Ramadhan, ruining both their fasting and Eid festival. They demand dismissal of responsible officers and a judicial inquiry. Rather, government instituted an inquiry by divisional commissioner (who neither took any preventive action, despite knowing the tense condition), keeping DM, IGP and SP out of the purview of terms of reference (TOR), despite the damning report against them by the Rajasthan PUCL team. Even then, the governor and CM are hosting Iftaar parties expecting Muslims to attend, adding salt to injury.
Indian state has no official religion. Its only dharma, if at all, is to protect the lives and property of people. Iftaar is a religious activity to be not politicised. Muslims are agonized over the politics of Iftaar which often divides them. Hosting Iftaar in official residences by constitutional post holders is problematic, like building and nurturing temples and mosques there, damaging the secular image of the Indian state.
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*Writer was professor in the HCM Rajasthan State Institute of Public Administration and is currently Member, Rajiv Gandhi Social Security Mission, Rajasthan . Address: 54 Kidwainagar, Jaipur 302015; Tel: 141-351786; Cell: 09784678786; Email to mhasan23@rediffmail.com; mhasan1944@gmail.com
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