SECULAR ANSWERS TO COMMUNAL QUESTIONS
A Catechism for Communalists

Perhaps I should first explain what a catechism is. It started as a set of questions and answers relating to the fundamental principles of the Christian Church. It has since gone on to become a technique of setting out and clearing doubts regarding the implications and applications of principles related to any subject.

In the five decades since Independence, we have rarely seen as sharp a communalization of our polity as we are now witnessing. The principles of secularism no longer seem to be as self-evident as they once were. This calls for not only a reaffirmation and explanation of the fundamental principles of the secular way of life. It also calls for specific answers to specific questions which are clearing the way for the creeping advance of the forces of communalism.

I have attempted to collate some of these questions and tried to provide some answers. I have also included questions that were raised and answered at the High-level National Training Camp on Secularism which I organised, in my capacity as chairman of the Congress party’s Politcal Training Department, in Bhopal in June 2000.

Why should we not have a uniform civil code?

The Constitution directs the State to progressively evolve a uniform civil code. This means, first, working towards the codification of personal law and customary usage within each community and, then, working out commonalities which would constitute the basis for discussing and agreeing upon a common code.
The provisions of a uniform civil code should not be imposed on the country by majority opinion alone but be evolved through consensus among the different communities inhabiting our country. Fortunately, every religion provides for a process of social reform from within. In Islam, this is called ijtehad. It is utterly wrong to assert—as both minority and majority communalists often do—that there is no scope for any change in Muslim personal law. Social and legal reform is part of the everyday politics of avowedly Islamic countries. Equally, far-reaching social reforms in the Muslim community, within the tenets of Islamic belief, were an integral part of our freedom movement. Many changes and improvements have been brought about in Muslim personal law since Independence. The same holds true of the personal law of other religious communities in India, including the Hindu personal law.
There is, sometimes, resistance to changes in the law or to judicial interpretations of the law. The Shahbano case is often cited as an example of Muslim fundamentalist obduracy. But it is by no means unique. There was fierce resistance to the codification and provisions of  Hindu personal law in the mid-fifties. After the codified law was enacted, there were numerous challenges to it in the courts. And right till today, there are blatant violations of the law in such matters as child marriage, dowry, sati, untouchability and a host of other social evils, with the sanction and support of fundamentalists of the majority community. It is because the Hindu community, by and large, accepted changes in Hindu personal law that these changes were eventually made possible. The same holds true of other communities, including the Muslims. There is no room in such matters for holier-than-thou attitudes. Nothing is gained by denigration of others or mutual recrimination in such matters.
Progress is taking place in the social practices of all religious communities. It is, however, a fact that the pace of progress is faster in some communities than in others. Nothing could be more dangerous or reactionary than forcing the pace of change from outside. The answer lies in members of any given community being encouraged to quicken the pace of change from within.
Personal law is a highly sensitive matter. India is a brotherhood of communities based on equality of respect (sarva dharma sambhaava) and not equality of numbers. If we force people to change their way of life merely because they belong to a religious minority, it will destroy the principle of “unity in diversity”, which is the foundation of our strength as a civilization, of the emotional integration of our nation, and of our unity as a country.
The example is sometimes cited of Goa, where a common civil code, applicable to all communities, including Muslims, has been in operation for centuries. It must be remembered that the code was imposed by a totally non-democratic, foreign, imperialist power that had captured Goa after defeating the ruling Muslim dyansty in the region. We can never replicate the methods of these proselytizing colonialists—nor would we wish to. We have to carry all communities with us in democratically evolving a uniform civil code. That is why while a uniform civil code must be the ultimate objective; such a code must be evolved by democratic debate posed on all by the brute majority of one or some communities.
Meanwhile, we already have a civil code which is open to members of all communities who wish to break away from the constrictions of their respective personal laws. It is a code which is adopted by many members of our majority conununity who find even the very advanced Hindu code laws inadequate for their personal purposes.
Voluntary action should be aimed at encouraging progressive members within each community to reflect upon and promote progress within their respective communities; prevent the social boycott of persons from within the community who opt for the civil code; and push for changes of a practical nature even where formal changes in personal law might take time.
All religious communities—including the Muslims—deeply believe that many of their personal laws, customs and usages are divinely inspired and have been codified in their scriptures, or documents derived from these scriptures, by some of their greatest sages and seers. It is by introspection and community-based effort that this sensitivity is best taken care of.
Political activisim by members of the majority community to forcibly impose changes in beliefs which the faithful believe to be divinely sanctioned will only outrage religious sentiment and thereby inflame communal passions. It is neither by communalization of the polity nor by blind appeasement that social progress will come. In a democratic, multireligious society such as ours, progress is possible only in a social and political atmosphere free of communal tension and through progress coming from within each section of society. Over time, this will lead to a large area of commonality which would lay the basis for a uniform civil code. In the meantime, any individual Indian remains free to stay within his or her personal law or to opt for the civil code, whichever the person prefers.

What justification was there for negating the Supreme Court judgment in the Shahbano case by an Act of Parliament?

Here is jurist and Congress leader Salman Khurshid’s answer to this question at the Bhopal training camp:
“Very quickly, let me first explain the context. In Islam, marriage is a contract, a sacred contract. And the terms of the marriage are defined within the contract. The contract is also a divorce arrangment. So, if the marriage comes to an end by way of divorce, the divorce must, of course, be through proper Islamic methodology. This methodology includes the sustenance, that is, the maintenance to be provided by the man to the wife. But in Islamic law and practice, whatever has to be provided has to be provided, indeed, must be provided within the period of the marriage, as, after the divorce, there can be no further relationship or contact of any kind between the man and his former wife. So, Islamic law provides that before the marriage is terminated, that is before the period of the iddat is over, the man must effect all dues solemnised contractually at the time of marriage.
“There are, of course, perversions of the law, transgressions of the law by offenders in specific cases. In such cases, Muslim women are entitled to go to the civil courts to seek such allowances or such arrangements as have been provided for at the time of marriage but not adhered to by the husband. But civil law and criminal law are different things.
“The Shahbano case related not to civil law but criminal law, in particular, to the provisions for the prevention of vagrancy covered under sections 125 and 127 of the Criminal Procedure Code. These sections provide for a maximum payment of Rs.500 per month by the man to the woman to forestall her falling into vagrancy. When the revised Cr.P.C. was being enacted in 1973, the Minister of State for Home Affairs who was piloting the Bill, Shri Ram Niwas Mirdha, on being asked to explain the relationship between these sections of the Criminal Procedure Code and Muslim Personal Law clarified that nothing in the Cr.P.C. should be taken as extinguishing or substituting the provisions of Muslim Personal Law. In fact, section 125 specifically provides that where there are customary and other legal payments that have to be paid upon divorce, if these payments have been made, then there will be no resort to the Cr.P.C.
“Shahbano’s husband argued that as he had made all the contractual payments due on divorce, he could not be proceeded against under the Cr.P.C. The Indore sessions court, however, rejected the husband’s argument and determined that he must pay Shahbano the derisory sum of Rs.13.50 per month under the Cr.P.C.’s vagrancy provisions, raised subsequently by the Jablapur High Court to Rs.179.20 per month, but not raised any further by the Supreme Court. Of course, Shahbano must have spent thousands in legal fees and other expenses to secure this paltry payment from the courts. In any case, the amount awarded her could not have exceeded Rs.500 per month as the law stands today. The really important issue which has got submerged in the controversy is whether Parliament should not increase the maximum limit well beyond the outdated Rs. 500 figure.
“With regard to the allegation so often made that the Muslim Women (Compensation on Divorce) Act, 1986, “reversed” the Supreme Court judgement, the Supreme Court itself, in a judgment delivered by a bench of five judges has held that Parliament did not reverse the judgement in the Shahbano case but, in fact, consolidated that judgment.
“Essentially, what the 1986 Act did was to amplfy the Islamic principles which provide for looking after a wife during marriage and upon divorce, and clarified that, upon divorce, certain rights accrue to the wife which go upto the time-limit for the iddat, that is, the three-month period before the divorce can be made final; that certain other arrangements have to be made which are part of the marriage settlement; that settlement also has to be made for the children for whom the husband is responsible; and that separate arrangements have to be made for any child still on mother’s milk; and to ensure that Section 125 will be excluded only when all these arrangements have been made.
“Of course, the law is sometimes not obeyed, as much in the Muslim community as in other communities. And, yes, there were some flaws left which people felt could be rectified in due course.  But there was a huge outcry engineered against the 1986 Act that Rajiv Gandhi had surrendered to the fundamentalists. The Supreme Court has now very clearly indicated that this was not the case. It was an amplification that Parliament provided, an amplificaton which provides for an alternative system of providing for Muslim women, not for denying Muslim women any of their rights under Islamic law.”

What is the logic of persisting with Article 370?

The special problems of Jammu and Kashmir do not arise only out of the fact of its being a Muslim-majority state. It is also a state coveted by a foreign power which has thrice gone to war with India to capture the state. It is a state whose territory is partly under hostile foreign occupation. It is a border state whose frontiers touch both Pakistan and China and which is geopolitically located in the cockpit of international intrigue and the interplay of the military blocs of the superpowers. It is a state whose future as an integral part of the Indian Union is sought to be questioned by Pakistan in international forums. It is a state whose continuance in the Indian Union depends on massive assistance from the Union Government, that is, from the country as a whole. It is a state in the throes of a proxy war.
It is with a view to addressing ourselves to these very special—and very serious—problems of Jammu and Kashmir that the constitutional device of Article 370 was evolved in 1949. In the decades that have passed since then, the international aspects of the Jammu and Kashmir question have not changed significantly. In particular, notwithstanding the Simla Agreement, Jammu and Kashmir continues to be the object of subversion by Pakistan. Indeed, recent world developments, including the restiveness in the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, have made it all the more important to handle Kashmir affairs with delicacy, sensitivity and understanding.
In the circumstances, the demand for abrogating Article 370 is totally misplaced. It would only result in the further alienation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir at a time when the unity and integrity of India are under threat from Pakistan and their collaborators in the Valley.
In any case, there is no practical relevance to abrogating Article 370. Jammu and Kashmir has freely accepted the application of almost all the laws of the country to the state. There is a common market between the state and the rest of the country, making Jammu and Kashmir an integral part of the Indian economy. There is free movement of persons from Jammu and Kashmir to the rest of the country and vice-versa. There is, in normal times, no hindrance to the free flow of information between the state and the rest of the Union. The culture of Jammu and Kashmir is a vital and vibrant component of our composite culture.
The main practical impact of Article 370 is restrictions on non-Kashmiris (please note: not non-Muslims) settling in the Kashmir Valley. There is little practical scope for settling any considerable body of outsiders in the Valley. What land there is, is already under the plough. There would not be many Indians from elsewhere in the country who would wish to actually settle there and, for the sake of the few thousands who might wish to do so, it would be a serious threat to the unity and integrity of India in so sensitive a border state to destabilize the largely poor and underprivileged people of Kashmir by imposing upon them large numbers of non-Kashmiris.
This is not a matter of religion alone, as is sometimes sought to be made out, especially by communal-minded people. There are many parts of India—for example, much of the north-east and the Fifth Schedule tribal areas in Bihar/Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh/Chhattisgarh, Orissa, and the border areas of Uttaranchal—where there are restrictions on settlement and the local economy is protected from outside encroachment.
This is the wrong time and wrong context in which to agitate for the abrogation of Article 370. In course of time, it will wither away of its own accord. Those who are attempting to make this non-issue into the central issue of our politics are only endangering the unity and integrity of the country at a time of grave national challenge.

Why should Hindus adopt family planning when Muslims resist it?

Our entire family planning programme is voluntary. Nobody is being forced to adopt it. All are being encouraged to do so.
The objective of family planning is not to restrict numbers as an objective in itself but to increase the welfare and happiness of families by assisting them in limiting their family size to what the family income can bear.
Any family or community that rejects family planning is only ensuring its own weakness and continued poverty. No community—neither the majority community nor any other community—will be able to augment its strength or rid itself of poverty if it rejects family planning.
In fact, family planning is practised by many Muslims and there are many Muslim opinion-makers who are propagating family planning within their community.
The apprehension of those who wish to stop family planning among Hindus because there is resistance in the Muslim community—or who, alternatively, wish to impose family planning on the Muslims because the Hindus are voluntarily accepting it—appears to be fear of the population profile of the country being reversed in favour of the Muslims. The apprehension is misplaced. The majority community of India comprises 85 per cent of the population. Even if the annual rate of growth of the population of one or the other of the minority communities is a few decimal points ahead of the average for the majority, it will be many, many decades before any significant change is effected in the overwhelming majority status of the majority community. And any significant change that occurs in demographic ratios in this manner will only be to the detriment of the community that resists family planning because it will be a poverty-ridden, undereducated and backward community.
The myth of a threat to the majority status of the majority community is propagated only to inflame communal passions. Hindus who reject family planning to keep up with the increase in the non-Hindu population are only enfeebling themselves. Equally, nonHindus who allow their families to increase unchecked are only enfeebling themselves.
Family planning is a voluntary programme which all Indians, of whatever community, must voluntarily accept. Those who do benefit themselves. Those who do not, harm themselves. This is not a question of politics or community. It is a question of family welfare.

Why build a Haj Manzil for Muslim pilgrims at a cost of Rs. 10 crore when there is nothing similar at Gorakhpur for Hindus wanting to undertake a thirtha-yatra to Pasupatinath?

First, our Muslims are Indian citizens—and, as such, fully entitled to be looked after by the Indian state.
Second, the need for a manzil arises out of the fact that the holiest places of Islam require a journey by sea or air from India and cannot be reached by road or rail. This is particularly important to note because the holiest pilgrimage of the Islamic faith is concentrated at a specific point in time, i.e., the eve of Eid-ul-Azha. It is for these practical reasons that a manzil is required in Bombay, which is the main exit point for pilgrimage by air or sea to the holy places of Islam.
To make such a facility available to Muslims is not to deny facilities for religious pilgrimage to Hindus. In fact, many more crores have been spent on developing travel and stay facilities to, and at hundreds of, holy Hindu religious shrines all over the country—and even outside India as, for example, the annual pilgrimages to Kailash Mansarovar. Facilities have even been negotiated with Pakistan for Sindhi Hindus to visit Sadhu Bela and for Punjabi Hindus to visit the shrine at Katasraj. For Sikhs, special arrangements have been made for pilgrimages to Nankana Saheb and Panja Saheb in Pakistan. Within the country, whether it is Vaishno Devi or Kedarnath, the four maths established by Adi Sankaracharya, the Kumbh Mela and thousands of other melas, the great temple of Vishwanath at Varanasi or the temples of Pandarpur, Tirupati and Madurai, or wherever, public money running to hundreds of crores has been spent—and rightly so—in catering to the religious requirements of the majority community and other non-Muslim minorities.
If, in fact, there is any major requirement of a manzil for Hindu pilgrims at Gorakhpur, or anywhere along the Nepal border, to facilitate visits by Hindu pilgrims to Pasupatinath, there would be no difficulty in fulfilling the demand.
The fact is that the Haj Manzil issue is only being exploited by majority communal elements like the Shiv Sena to inflame communal passions. There is, in reality, no agitation because a majority community requirement is being overlooked. The agitation is only because a minority community requirement is being catered to.

Why does the Government of India subsidise Hajis when it does not similarly subsidise Hindu pilgrims?

Answering this question at the Bhopal camp, Mohammed Hamid Ansari, who has served twice as India’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and organized numerous Haj pilgrimages for Indian Muslims, had this to say:
“There are some tasks that a Government must carry out for its citizens and there are other tasks which are best left to the citizen himself. So, what we need to understand is that facilities for pilgrimages must be made available by the state. Thus, whether it is at Badrinath or Vaishnodevi or Tirupati, or a hundred and one places where these facilities are required, Government is duty-bound to provide the required facilities. This is so even when the pilgrimage requires visiting a foreign country, as is the case for going to Kailash Mansarovar in the Tibet region of China. That requires all kinds of assistance from the Government. It is in this perspective that one must understand the problem of the Haj subsidy.
“Earlier, the Haj used to be undertaken by sea and it was Moghul Lines, a private company, that ran the service. Then, Moghul Lines was nationalised, but went into losses and, as is the case with many other state enterprises, the Government decided to subsidise the losses of its own company. Thus, the initial Haj subsidy amounted to the transfer of its own funds from one pocket of the Government to another. But when sea services for the Haj ended and it was decided that air services would be brought in, it was obvious that the cost of passage would be much higher. It was, therefore, argued that since it was Government itself which was denying Haj pilgrims the sea passage and forcing on them the air services, Government must compensate the pilgrims for an additional expense they had to bear not of their own choice but because it was a decision thrust upon them.
“It is my personal view that this was the wrong way to have gone about it. There can be no objection to Government subsidizing a government company for commercial reasons but the Haji, being an individual pilgrim, should not be subidised in this manner, particularly because it discriminates against those pilgrims who go not on the Government quota but on their own as private Hajis. Around two-thirds of the Hajis go with Government subsidy and about one-third on their own. Those who go on their own are clearly discimnated against. This, in my view, needs to be changed. Minorityism is just as bad as appeasement and we, therefore, need a new way of tackling the issue. But the sad fact is that when there was a non-BJP Government in office, the Haj subsidy was used as a stick with which to beat the Government in office, but now that the BJP is in office for several years no new initiative has been taken in this regard. In any case, even at subsidised rates, it costs Rs. 75,000 per person to perform the Haj and if the pilgrim goes with his family, an expenditure of several lakhs is involved. So, it cannot be said that the subsidy is being given to poor Muslims. In fact, the beneficiaries tend to be the better-off. What we need to recognise is that if there is a commercial problem, it should be dealt with as a commercial problem.”
John Dayal added:
“I agree the state should not involve itself in issues that do not concern the state. But when the state spends crores on the Kumbh Mela and hundreds of other pilgrimages, there should be the same logic to subsidising pilgrims of other religious persuasions. But the Government refused to subsidise Indian Airlines when Catholic pilgrims in 1999-2000 wished to visit Jerusalem in additon to Rome. Why should I be denied a subsidy to Rome, or even a well-placed subsidy to Velanakanni, when Government finance is available for the pilgrimages of other religious communities?” 

Name any Muslim country that practises secularism.

Is that a good enough reason for us to not do so? Do we want to copy the sectarianism of others—or would we prefer to be the example to the world of a vibrant secularism?
Each country must decide its own destiny for itself. There are many Muslim countries that wish to run an Islamic polity. There are some—like Iraq under Saddam Hussein and Turkey since Kemal Ataturk—which prefer the kind of secularism we practice. There are many Christian nations that have proclaimed Christianity as the state religion. Nevertheless, there are few in which the non-Christian population is subjected to disabilities. There is the Zionist State of Israel where Judaism is the official religion—and the majority Muslim Palestinian population has been driven out of the country or deliberately reduced to secondclass status. There is one Hindu country—Nepal—which has proclaimed Hinduisrn as its official religion.
Yet, almost all countries—whether they have an official state religion or not—are having to come to terms with the fact of large religious minorities in their midst. The United Kingdom—whose Queen bears the official title of Defender of the Faith (i.e., Protestant Christianity)—is a good example of a non-secular state coming to terms with secularism. In other words, all these states are increasingly having to learn from the Indian example of a multireligious secular society. We, for our part, have nothing to learn from uni-religious sectarian anachronisms. Those who want to convert our secular country into a “Hindu Rashtra” are really wanting to drag our country backwards.

Does not a religion which talks of kafir and jehad pose a special threat that other religions do not pose?

First, definitions. As pointed out by the dedicated secular activist, D.R.Goel, at the Bhopal camp, the Prophet himself defined “Kafir” not as an “unbeliever” but as one who transgresses the basic principles of humanity, one who refuses to accept the unity of God. To illustrate the point, Goel said, the Prophet himself gave non-Muslims the right to retain their places of worship. Indeed, there were, in fact, villages/communities near Mecca (Makkah) where the Hindus were permitted to retain their temples and justice was administered according to Hindu custom and usage. Al-Hajjaj, the Governor of Iraq, whose nephew Mohammad bin Qassim was sent to conquer Sind, was also instructed to bring back with him to Baghdad Pandits who could help translate Sanskrit scripture into Arabic. And he went on to quote Jawaharlal Nehru as saying that if, in fact, contact beween Islam and Hinduism had come through contacts between Arabs and Indians, that is, through peaceful interaction between the great streams of thought represented by Islam and Hindusim, rather than through so-called Turkish conquerors forcing the Khyber Pass, it might have led to the creation of a new civilization through a process of synthesis. Moreover, added Goel, a true Momin is defined as one who helps everybody, not just fellow-Muslims, and so instead of being taken in by the debased meaning of “kafir”, the word should be understood as explained in the Holy Koran and the Hadith.
Salman Khurshid added that jehad is not jehad as it is popularly or sometimes maliciously projected. The biggest jehad of all in Islam is the struggle which you have with yourself to overcome your weaknesses. In that sense, Mahatma Gandhi was the greatest jehadi of them all because he was constantly struggling against what he believed were his own weaknesses before teaching anything to anybody. Khurshid added that there was another sense in which jehad is used and that is in connection with war. But not all wars are jehad; it is only wars that are fought for justice that constitute jehad, and while there may be different interpretations given to the concpt of “just wars”, so long as it is understood that what is just in word must also be what is just in practice, it should not be difficult to distinguish between just wars, which are jehad, and unjust wars, which are not.
G.M. Banatwala of the Indian Union Muslim League intervened to say it was completely wrong to equate every terrorist attack with jehad because this only confers respectability on terrorism. If the attack on the Twin Towers in New York was an act of terrorism, so was the flattening of Afghanistan by the Americans. Even so, he added, was the razing to the ground of the Babri Masjid an act of terroism. It would be wrong to dignify any of these acts with the name of jehad. We should not be equating terrorism and unjust wars with jehad as understood in Islam.      

Why do Indian Muslims cheer Pakistani teams at sports meets?

Some Indian Muslims may do so. Most do not. In any case, a sport is a sport and the playing field should not be made the battleground for determining national loyalties. In England, there is a controversy raging over the question of whether Indian (and Pakistani) emigrants to Britain should cheer for the English or the India/Pakistan sides in cricket matches.
The patriotism of the Muslims of India is not to be tested in a cricket match—but when there is a challenge to the independence, unity and security of the country. Were the Muslims of Kashmir with India or Pakistan in October 1947 and May 1948? Was it not the Muslims of Kashmir who captured the saboteurs sent by Pakistan in August 1965 under Operation Gibraltar? Did not the civilian Muslim population of Kashmir back our army in 1965 and 1971? Are there not numerous Muslim jawans and officers in our armed forces—so many of whom have sacrificed their lives in the defence of the nation? Have not crores of Muslims everywhere in the country stood up for their country in every national crisis, whether it has involved Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka, the Maldives—or any other country?
Is patriotism the monopoly of the Hindus? In the years since Independence, there have been hundreds of Hindiis who have been caught spying for Pakistan. Does that mean the patriotism of the entire Hindu community is to be impugned? And, if not, why should the doubts and anguish and even treachery of some Indian Muslims be taken as proof positive that the entire Muslim community is traitor to their motherland?
Why should the cricket loyalty test be administered to Muslims when our cricket captain himself has been a Muslim?
Those who question the patriotism of the Muslim community as a whole are not themselves patriots but unthinking—and, sometimes, maliciously motivated—saboteurs of the unity and emotional integration of our nation.

Does not the demand for azadi on the part of Kashmiri Muslims after more than 50 years of being an integral part of the Union of India—and despite the thousands of crores spent on their development, welfare and defence -not show that a Muslim can never be a patriotic Indian?

In a sensitive border state like Kashmir, which is the continuous object of subversion and sabotage by Pakistan, there is bound to be a section of opinion which entertains thoughts of secession. The task before the country is not to denounce or distrust all Kashmiris, but to politically fight the forces of secession.
Past experience has shown that a political fight has to be given wherever the forces of secession raise their heads—whether it was among the Christian community of Nagaland or Mizoram, or the Sikh community in Punjab, or the Hindu communities of Assam or Tripura, or the Gorkha community of the Darjeeling Hills, or the atheists of the Dravidar Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu. For the faults of the few, how can an entire community be dubbed unpatriotic?
In truth, it is those who seek to exploit the grievances of the Kashmiris to stoke communal passions everywhere in India who are really betraying the interests of the nation. It is communalism which is the highest form of treachery. It is secularism which is the highest form of patriotism. The genuine problems of the people of Kashmir have to be tackled, the natural secularism of the Kashmiri people has to be restored. This was how the problems of secession were tackled in Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura, Assam, the Darjeeling Hills and Taniil Nadu. It will be disastrous for the unity and emotional integrity of the country if the real problems are neglected and communal feelings needlessly inflamed. Neither the unity nor the integrity of the country can be preserved by handing over the Kashmir Valley to Pakistan—which is the counsel of despair now being given by some fainthearts—or driving all the Muslims out of the Valley, as is being propagated by some of the most viciously narrowminded communal elements in our polity.

Why are Indian Muslims worried about the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem when there are so many dilapidated mosques in India?

The Al Aqsa mosque has a special place in Islamic faith. It has been damaged—and could even be destroyed—by the authorities and extremists of Israel, who have driven most Palestinians (most of whom are Muslims) out of their homeland and made the rest prisoners in their own homes. Israel is an avowedly Zionist state in which, with state encouragement, the Jewish religion prevails over the Islamic faith.
It is but natural that the Muslims of India should join others of their faith to condemn the Zionist desecration of one of their holiest shrines.
Indeed, all right-thinking Indians, of all religions, have joined hands with their brethren in the Non-Aligned Movement (which contains representatives of two-thirds of the countries of the world, including dozens where there are no Muslims at all) to condemn repeated Israeli attempts to destroy the mosque.

There have been cases of Muslim shrines being shifted to other locations in Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia. Why not in India?

There can be no objection in principle to shifting religious shrines for well-founded, well-established practical reasons (such as traffic requirements, which is the example cited from Saudi Arabia) provided this is legally valid and in keeping with the public interest.
But we must resist and prevent any attempt at gratuitously destroying or removing religious shrines only to hurt the religious sentiments of particular religious communities or to inflame religious passions or provoke communal feelings.
In the specific case of the Babri Masjid—which is the context in which this question is generally raised—the issue is before the courts and it is essential that everybody strictly abide by the court verdict in letter and spirit. It is the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, backed by the BJP, that has said it will destroy the Babri Masjid and build a Ram Mandir in its place, whatever the court verdict. That position is unacceptable to secular opinion in the country.

Why do Muslims object to singing Vande Mataram?

It is not only the martyr Maqbool Ahmed of Sholapur who, in 1930, went to the gallows singing Vande Mataram, there are thousands of Muslim Congressmen who join in singing Vande Mataram at Congress functions every day.
There is a religious objection, on the part of some Muslim believers, to singing a song which says one bows in worship to Mother India because, according to them, the Islamic faith enjoins them to worship only Allah. There are also objections to the veiled condemnation of Muslim rule in the second and subsequent verses of the song. This was made into a political issue between the Arya Samajists and the Muslim Leaguers, especially during the early decades of this century when the running battles between the Shuddhi and Tabligh movements contributed to dangerously communalizing our polity, which eventually resulted in the partition of the country.
Those who are now seeking to flog this dead horse are not really trying to honour the memory of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee but merely trying to again comniunalize our politics. We must not fall into their trap.
As far as the Congress is concerned, all Congressmen—Muslim, Hindu or other—join in singing Vande Mataram at Congress functions, as also the national anthem.

Why do Muslims seek a separate identity in India—in terms of language, dress, etc.—when they do not do so in countries like Indonesia?

In fact, as is evident to anyone who visits the Ka’aba in Mecca during the holy pilgrimage, the Muslims of the world are drawn from every race, every continent, many different languages, and many different cultural and ethnic identities.
In India itself, Muslims belong to numerous different linguistic ethnic groups. It is in a religious sense that they constitute a distinct identity. To reinforce this identity, they have, historically, evolved some symbols of a common identity and means of communication which breach other linguistic barriers. Thus, Urdu is a language spoken by many Indian Muslims. But neither is Urdu an exclusive preserve of Muslims—it is the lingua franca in parts of India and some of the greatest scholars and writers of Urdu include Hindus, Sikhs and Christians. Nor is knowledge of Urdu the sine qua non of being an Indian Muslim—there are many Indian Muslims with little or no knowledge of Urdu. Nor is Urdu the language of Islam anywhere in parts of the subcontinent.
The search for a common language of communication and symbols of religious identity is by no means peculiar to India’s Muslim community. For centuries, Hindus have breached linguistic barriers through the use of Sanskrit and, in modern times, this is being increasingly done by resorting to Hindi and even English. Some of the greatest writings of Swami Vivekananda were in English. There are also many symbols which Hindus living in different parts of India and in different countries—whether this be in Hindu-majority countries like India, Nepal and Mauritius or Hindu-minority countries like the United States and the United Kingdom—use to signal each other.
To make an issue of Urdu or achkans or qawwalis is merely to communalize our polity.

Why do foreign missionaries proselytize in India when there are so many problems—like drug abuse—which they should be attending to at home?

For the same reason that Hindu missionaries from India have established ashrams in numerous foreign countries and converted uncounted numbers of Christians and others to the Hindu way of life.
Religion, at its best, looks on the world and humanity as one (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, as the Hindu scriptures put it). Even humanitarian as there are thousands of religious workers engaged in work in their respective homelands, so are there sections of these religious orders working outside their countries.
The foreign missionaries working in India follow a faith which is the faith of millions of Indians. Christianity is not a ‘foreign’ religion, nor is Hinduism the only authentic religion of India. A secular Indian gives equal respect to all the religions of India, including Christianity. Our Constitution permits the free propagation of religion. So long as foreign missionaries work within the bounds of the Constitution and the law, there can be no legitimate objection to what they are doing.
Those communal elements in our majority community who object to the humanitarian work being done by foreign missionaries on the ground that they should restrict their activities to their own community and their own countries would be well advised to follow their own advice—and tend to the problems of social and economic deprivation within their own community instead of inflaming communal passion by raising the bugbear of foreign missionary activity.

Why should we permit Christian missionary activity, when Swami Vivekananda and Gandhiji had denounced Christian proselytizing and the K.C. Neogy Committee appointed by the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh had detailed the anti-Hindu propagnda carried on by Christian missionaries in the guise of spreading the Gospel?

There was a period in our history when Christian proselytizing had the advantage of a foreign government privileging foreign missionaries. But when one considers that one of Gandhiji’s closest personal friends was the Rev.Charles Andrew, a foreign Christian missionary, and that he was frequently a guest in Delhi with the Principal of St. Stephen’s College, known accurately in common parlance as “Mission College”, it is obvious that communalists invoking the name of Gandhi is tantamount to the Devil citing the scriptures.
Gandhiji’s objection was to conversion without consent and conversion by inducement as also to the denigration of other religions in the name of proselytization. Swami Vivekananda, making much the same point, also paid the mission mode the tribute of lanching the Ramakrishna Mission which, in India and abroad, has for a century and more done excellent social service, besides welcoming into the Hindu fold those from other religions – Indian and foreign – who have responded to the Ramakrishna Mission’s propagation of the Hindu faith by seeking spiritual solace in the teachings of Hinduism. 
Conversion by threat or blandishment is illegal in independent India, as is the dengration of other religions. The right to propagate one’s religion is a fundamental constitutional right given to all religions – not Christians alone – but hedged with the statutory condition that forcible conversions are a cognizable offence and missionaries, of whatever faith, are prohibited by law from spreading disaffection towards other religions.
B.S Niyogi had a long personal record, going back to before Independence, of protesting foreign missionary activity. As one who opposed missionary activity with missionary zeal, he was hardly a disintereated observer. In any case, the report of his Commission of Enquiry was submitted nearly half a century ago. It is the duty of the state to ensure that missionaries operate within the framework of the law, but there is no place in our constitution or in law for self-appointed militia to spread terror and mayhem the way the Bajrang Dal in Gujarat and Orissa have targeted Christian missionaries, Christian communities and their places of worship.
It also appears that most of the excesses of the past are a thing of the past and that the overwhelming record of Christian missionary work in the counry is not ony positive but has woked as an incentive for similar educational, health and social work among the deprived by missionaries of other religious persuasions. In any case, as John Dayal pointed out at the Bhopal camp, there are less than a thousand missionaries of foreign origin in all of India, the youngest of whom has been forty years in India! Most of our contemporary Christian missionaries are Indian citizens exercising their constitutionally guranteed fundamental right of progating their eligion but most of the time devoting themselves less to harvesting souls for the Church than answering to their Christian duty of looking after those less fortunate than themselves.