Quran, 8.25

Ibn Katheer commenting on this verse has quoted a Prophetic tradition sayingthat "if a people, despite being strong and numerous, do nothing to stopthose men among them who do wrong, then they will be surrounded withpunishment".

History is full of instances showing how a small group of people or individualsby their odious acts have inconvenienced the communities they belong to.

Today the Muslims as a community are passing through a difficult period onaccount of the activities of terrorists who shamelessly use religion to justifytheir crimes.

A common Muslim, like his compatriots, is busy earning his daily bread andraising the family. With increased awakening about modern education, goodnumbers of Muslim families from rural areas have moved to urban centres toensure education for their wards. A casual survey of the families living inJamia Nagar will show that the majority of them hail from villages and dependfor their income on rural sources. In many cases it is only the mothers andchildren who are living here, while the men spend most of their time in nativeplaces to arrange the necessary means for the family to carry on in Delhi. Theironly concern is a safe and peaceful environment congenial for academic pursuit.

On the other hand, attracted by this large population, more than two dozenMuslim outfits have established themselves in this neighbourhood taking uponthem the responsibility to lead and organise the religious and social life ofthe community. They include organisations like the Personal Law Board, MuslimMajlis-e-Mushawarat and Jamaat-e-Islami. None of these organisations is knownfor promoting social reform or education. Most of the time they are competingwith each other in crying wolf and pressing the need to fight against imaginedthreats to the Muslim religion and identity. Occasionally they also succeed insecuring positions of power for their nominees and this political patronagehelps them to widen their network in the community.

If we look at some important events of the past then an idea can be formed aboutthe activities and mindset that is promoted by these organisations.

After the official ban on The Satanic Verses, Mushirul Hasan, the presentvice chancellor and then teacher in the history department of Jamia, said in aninterview to a weekly that a ban on the book would only boost its sales andincrease the circulation of the objectionable writing. His remarks were not insupport of the book, its contents or the writer, yet they provoked an angry andviolent protest inside the campus. The Muslim outfits worked overtime toinstigate and excite the feelings resulting in a situation where despitecontinuing on the rolls of the university Mushirul Hasan could not enter thecampus for more than three long years.

During the war in Afghanistan, public expressions of solidarity with Osama binLaden were made and posters in his support were pasted in the area by someself-appointed champions of Muslim interests. This was done despite theknowledge that Osama and Al-Qaeda were directly involved in Terror activities inKashmir. I remember having met many Muslims from Jamia Nagar who expressed theirutter indignation over the episode and felt sorry for not being able to opposethese undesirable activities.

In 1990, Prof Mushirul Haq, the vice chancellor of Kashmir University, waskilled by terrorists in Srinagar. Since he was an old teacher of Jamia, hisburial took place inside the campus. As an academician I had held him in greatesteem and during the Shah Bano controversy had sought his opinion on severaloccasions. I went to attend his last rites and walked almost a kilometre withthe funeral procession. After reaching the burial ground suddenly the lightswent out and in that darkness I was attacked with an iron rod, causing headinjury. Later, inquiries revealed that the students who had organised theblackout and attack belonged to the Jamaat-e-Islami. It is important to recallthat the banned organisation, SIMI, was mostly manned by young activistsinspired by philosophies like that of the Jamaat-e-Islami.

The other organisation with headquarters in this area is MuslimMajlis-e-Mushawarat. On the slightest provocation they would call for a boycottof celebrations of Independence Day or Republic Day giving rise to communaltension. It is true that on every occasion they had withdrawn the calls, butthat did not help in lessening the tension.

The most important Muslim organisation operating from the Jamia neighborhood isthe All India Muslim Personal Law Board and its affiliates. During theiragitation against the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Shah Bano case, themembers of AIMPLB made public exhortations to break the legs of Muslims whodiffered with their stand. Their supporters went to the extent of suggestingthat Supreme Court judges are not competent to interpret Muslim personal law.

It is important to recall that during parliamentary discussion of the bill thatwas brought in to negate the impact of the Supreme Court judgment, almost everyminister who rose to defend the measure referred to the apprehensions of threatsto law and order arising on account of an aggressive and violent agitation.

Such activities of these Muslim outfits are as much a source of consternation tocommon Muslims as they are to other Indians. Occasionally some Muslims raisetheir voice but they lose nerve when they see the political promiscuity andinfluence enjoyed by these extremist elements.

The establishment must realise that the police can fight terrorists, notterrorism. Terrorism can be contained only by a strong political will thatidentifies and isolates individuals and organisations promoting a violentmindset and does not favour them with political patronage.

Arif Mohammed Khan is a former union minister