Indian Muslims Against Terrorism
Yoginder Sikand
Recent months have witnessed a spate of seminars,
public meetings, rallies and press conferences
organized by various Muslim groups across India
denouncing terrorism and insisting that it has no
relation whatsoever with Islam. These have been widely
reported in the Muslim press, but, barring the
recently-held Anti-Terrorism convention held by the
Dar ul-Ulum Deoband, they have not received any
attention by the so-called 'mainstream' Indian press.
The reason is simple: The 'mainstream' press rarely,
if ever, highlights any positive stories or news about
Muslims. It is as if only 'bad' news about Muslims is
'good' news for the 'mainstream' press.
These anti-terrorism meetings are of considerable
significance in several respects. They clearly
indicate the unfortunate predicament of the Muslim
community, which has been unfairly singled out, both
in India and elsewhere, as being allegedly inherently
associated with terrorism. It is a sign of the
massive, and still mounting, wave of Islamophobia,
propelled by Western, Zionist, and, within India,
Hindutva, forces, which is increasingly compelling
Muslims and their organizations to be put on the
defensive. No other community is being forced to
explain itself and absolve itself of charges of
'terrorism' in even remotely the same way, although
'terrorism' is, needless to say, not specifically a
'Muslim' issue.
The anti-terrorism meetings show that the Muslim
religious leadership is fast waking up to the need to
reach out to an audience beyond that of their own
followers, in particular to non-Muslims and to explain
their stance to them. This follows mounting arrests
and even killings of Muslims, many of them innocent,
on charges of 'terrorism'. Although on the whole
unfortunate, this move to reach out to non-Muslims
might have a welcome fall-out: they might help build
important bridges of communication between Muslims and
non-Muslims, promote much-needed inter-community
solidarity and counter deeply-rooted communal
prejudices. This effort is, however, hampered by the
fact that the Muslim religious leaders who have
organized these meetings have few, if any, relations
with non-Muslim organizations, activists and media
professionals who could have helped relay their
message to a broader non-Muslim audience. Hence, most
of their meetings have been both addressed and
attended by Muslims themselves, reducing them largely
to exercises in preaching to those who are already
convinced of the argument that Islam has no relation
with terrorism.
These meetings clearly suggest the growing willingness
on the part of influential sections of the Muslim
religious leadership to bring internal contestations
about Islamic authenticity into the public domain and
to openly deny the claims to such authenticity on the
part of such fringe elements that target innocents in
the name of Islam. By explicitly condemning acts of
terrorism as anti-Islamic, even if these are carried
out by groups that claim to be 'Islamic', they clearly
indicate the possibilities of developing alternate
forms of religious expression that condemn terrorism
in all its forms and stress the need for
inter-community solidarity for social justice.
Significantly, these meetings have sought to widen the
scope of public debate about 'terrorism' by also
raising the issue of forms of terrorism engaged in by
a range of non-Muslim actors, something that the
dominant Western and Indian media have been reluctant
to discuss, name or even acknowledge. They have,
accordingly, talked of the need to also condemn state
terrorism, particularly American and Israeli, that has
caused the deaths of literally hundreds of thousands
of people. They have condemned with equal passion the
terrorism of the Hindutva brigade, often abetted by
elements in the Indian state apparatus. Surely, as
these meetings appeal to us to acknowledge, the debate
on terrorism must move beyond its misplaced obsession
only with Muslims to cover all forms of terrorism if
we are at all serious about combating the problem.
These meetings have also forcefully called for more
terminological clarity and balance about the very
concept of 'terrorism'. They have pointed out that in
the case of several Muslim groups and movements in
certain countries, anti-imperialist resistance forces
that have taken to violence in self-defence cannot be
branded as 'terrorists', as the dominant media
generally does. This is most striking in the case of
the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance movements, that
may use an 'Islamic' vocabulary for their
anti-imperialist agenda.
It is significant to note that while denouncing
terrorism done by Muslim groups (and simultaneously
condemning terrorism engaged in by states and by
non-Muslim forces), these meetings have not explicitly
critiqued any Muslim group engaged in terrorism by
name. Nor have these meetings sought to critique the
interpretations of Islam articulated by these groups
in any detailed manner, beyond simply announcing that
Islam has no relation with terrorism. This perhaps
emanates from a fear of being attacked, even
physically, if such groups were to be named. It could
also indicate a reluctance to admit that some Muslims,
like some others, too might actually engage in
terrorism. Whatever the reason, this silence surely
reduces the impact that these meetings might have
otherwise had in countering terrorism in the name of
Islam engaged in by some fringe groups.
The debate about 'terrorism' needs to move beyond the
parallel sets of monologues engaged in by Muslim
groups and their detractors. The series of
anti-terrorism meetings organized recently by various
Muslim groups across India has sought to do this in a
limited way, although this effort has been marred by a
lack of sufficient internal critique. That said, these
meetings are undoubtedly a very welcome and
significant development.
Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye
The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping
The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping
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