Speaking From
Gujarat
By Dr. Juzar
Bandukwala & Yoginder Sikand
06 October, 2004
Countercurrents.org
Dr.
Juzar Bandukwala teaches physics at the University of Baroda in Gujarat.
A well-known and widely-respected social activist and journalist, he
has been in the forefront of the struggle for justice to the victims
of the recent state-sponsored violence directed against the Muslims
of Gujarat. In this interview he speaks to Yoginder Sikand about his
work and about the situation in Gujarat today.
Q: You have been
involved for many years in social activism. How did it all begin?
A: It all started
when I was in the United States, way back in 1972, when I was there
for my doctoral studies. One day, I happened to go to a church, where
I met a nun who told me that I could do more for my own people if I
returned to my own country rather than stay on in America. That conversation
changed my entire life. I destroyed my green card, and, despite the
strong protests of my wife, I decided to return to India, where I joined
the physics department at the University of Baroda, where I still continue
to teach. After I got back I got involved with various initiatives for
social reforms among the Muslims of Gujarat. Because of my views I was
even ex-communicated from the Daudi Bohra community by the Syedna, the
religious head of the sect to which my family belonged. That was a major
trauma for me, but in a way it strengthened my resolve to work for social
reforms. It also led me to question the sharp sectarian differences
that many Muslim leaders have a vested interest in maintaining. These
sectarian barriers no longer held any meaning for me. Because of this
the general Muslim masses in Gujarat, Sunnis as well as Shias, accepted
me as theirs, and as simply a Muslim and not as a member of a particular
sect.
Q: Could you
describe the sort of work have you been engaged in all these years?
A: All these years
I have been aiming at promoting liberal and progressive thought among
the Muslims of Gujarat. This is indispensable in today's world. For
this, modern education is a must. This should go alongside with religious
education, but I think we also must address the serious question of
the reform of traditional madrasa education. I have been consistently
writing about this. At the height of the Shah Bano controversy I wrote
an article where I said that there is something seriously wrong with
us if we are forcing a poor old woman to beg the courts for maintenance
rights, for a measly 125 rupees a month. Instead of haranguing that
old woman, I said, we must re-examine the ways in which we understand
Islam. Predictably, I faced stiff opposition for this stance from conservative
Muslims.
Likewise, in the
wake of the 'Satanic Verses' controversy I wrote a piece where I said
that the fatwa to kill Rushdie was completely un-Islamic. I said that
I didn't agree at all with Rushdie's views, but insisted that the right
way to oppose the book was by offering a counter-perspective, what we
Muslims believe to be the correct perspective. Ideas should be fought
only at the level of ideas. Burning books and condemning authors to
death is simply not the civilised way to get your point across. No sooner
was this article of mine out in the press than almost all the maulvis
and pirs of Baroda got together to issue a fatwa declaring that I was
an 'enemy of Islam' and that I was no longer a Muslim! They even went
to the ridiculous extent of claiming that I was secretly engaged in
turning girls into prostitutes, because I have been consistently arguing
for modern education for Muslim girls. My simple reply to them was that
by leaving our girls ignorant and illiterate they themselves were paving
the way for what they accused me of being engaged in.
When this fatwa
was issued against me I really panicked. Earlier, when I had clashed
with the Syedna of the Daudi Bohras I had the entire Muslim community
behind me to rely on. But this time I felt I had no one! But then I
got help from the most unexpected quarter, from Haji Mastan. He used
to follow my writings, and was familiar with my views. He had a sort
of Robinhood streak in him, although he was a don. When he heard about
the fatwa against me he sent me a message saying that he wanted to meet
me. He came to Baroda, where he organised a public meeting. He was very
popular among many Muslims then, so a large crowd attended the meeting.
He took the fatwa and read out the names of all the maulvis who had
signed it and, referring to me, said to the crowd, 'Do you know who
this man is? He is a professor. He knows about the world and is concerned
about the Muslims and their future'. Then, referring to the maulvis,
he said, 'Don't you dare touch the professor. If you do so, I won't
leave you'. That single statement of Haji Mastan had a lightening impact
and silenced the mullahs. It also inspired me to carry on with my efforts
at promoting social reforms among the Muslims. For this purpose, in
1994 we started the Baroda Welfare Society, whose main concern was to
promote educational awareness among the Muslims of Gujarat.
Q: Besides working
for reforms within the Muslim community you have also been struggling
against Hindutva forces in Gujarat. Could you say something about your
involvement in this regard?
A: Hindutva forces
have played havoc with Gujarat, and the recent genocidal attacks on
Muslims are only the latest of a series of attacks that have been occurring
in Gujarat in recent decades. In 1983, I along with some friends, began
a series of satyagraha protests against the Hindutvawadis, and against
police harassment and torture of Muslims. In 1990 we launched a similar
protest movement against the misuse of the draconian TADA law, for which
I was sent to jail under the National Security Act. In the recent state-sponsored
genocidal attacks on Muslims in Gujarat, my colleagues and I have been
consistently raising our voices in protest. But, to be honest, today
Muslims in the state are so scared that few are willingly to openly
speak out against Modi or the Hindutva groups. But we have to do so.
We cannot afford to be cowed down and permanently crushed. We cannot
live in permanent fear. We must try and come out of this. We need to
keep up the struggle against both the Hindutvawadis as well as the obscurantists
among the Muslim religious leadership. We need to work from a secular,
not religious or communal, platform, and we must include secular Hindus
as well in our work. This is what I've been trying to do as a member
of the People's Union for Civil Liberties. Our fight is not against
Hinduism as a religion, but against Hindutva, which is a fascist ideology.
Q: Have you received
any support from any Gujarati Hindu religious leaders for your efforts
to promote communal harmony and bring justice to the victims of the
violence in the state?
A: One thing that
has really hurt me is that no major Gujarati religious leader openly
expressed sorrow for what happened, except perhaps for Morari Bapu.
I think anyone's claim to be religious, be he a Hindu or a Muslim, is
completely meaningless if one lacks any sensitivity to the plight of
innocent people. What is the use of talking about peace and harmony,
like many people who claim to be religious leaders do, when at the time
when you must protest against oppression you choose to keep silent?
How can you explain the silence of the Jain munis of Gujarat, who refrain
from killing insects but said nothing in public when babies in mothers'
stomachs were being ripped out? Many Gandhians in Gujarat also preferred
to keep mum when Muslims were being butchered. If they had spoken out
during the violence the lives of many innocent people could have been
saved. You cannot be neutral and sit back and watch when people are
being massacred before your eyes. But in Gujarat, indirectly and otherwise,
many Hindu religious leaders actually encouraged the rioters. In some
cases, Hindu religious leaders were involved in distributing trishuls
to Hindus. Muslims in Gujarat feel despondent because so few Hindus
have had the courage to speak out against the atrocities and killings.
The Germans have apologised for the killings of the Jews, and Japan
has asked for forgiveness for killing the Chinese, but I do not see
many Gujarati Hindus remorseful for what has happened with the Muslims
of the state. Instead many Gujarati Hindus would still insist that the
Muslims 'deserved' it.
But here let me
add that one has to see the issue in a wider perspective. What I have
said about the majority of the Hindu leaders in Gujarat is also true
for Muslim religious leaders elsewhere, for when non-Muslims are killed
in Muslim majority countries, few Muslim maulvis protest against this
brutality. How can people who kill innocents in the name of Islam be
considered true Muslims, when the Qur'an itself says that to kill a
single innocent human is like slaughtering the whole of humanity? The
killing of innocents, no matter what their religion, should be treated
as a human issue, not as a communal one.
Q: In the aftermath
of the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat, do you see any new sort of leadership
emerging among the Muslims in the state?
A: The violence,
which was unprecedented in its brutality and scale, certainly has left
a major scar in most Muslims' minds. I think that as a result of the
violence there is a growing realisation that Muslims have to depend
on themselves to protect their lives and their interests, and this,
in turn, means that they must give far greater attention to modern education
and to social reforms, particularly women's rights. I am not at all
suggesting that they should give up their concern with their religion.
After all, I am a believing Muslim myself. But my point is that we need
to move away from this stultifying obsession with burkhas and beards,
because what counts in Islam is piety, the actual state of your heart
and mind. But in any case, I must say that now even some maulvis have
started supporting our case for modern education. But this change is
as yet not very significant, and the Muslim religious establishment
as a whole remains quite immune to the demands of modernity in several
crucial respects. Take the case of south Gujarat, where there are almost
two dozen massive madrasas, each similar to a university, producing
hundreds of maulvis every year. There is not a single Muslim college
in the area, however! This shows how modern education has been neglected
by Muslim leaders. Where will all the maulvis that these madrasas are
producing be absorbed? There are simply not enough jobs for all of them
to be gainfully employed. We have been pleading for combining the madrasas
with modern schools, but there is stiff opposition to this on the part
of many maulvis.
I think that in
Gujarat, in the rest of the country and internationally as well, a major
issue that we must deal with is the inability of many Muslims to modernise
and to adjust comfortably to a situation of religious pluralism. We
must engage in deep introspection, and critique our own selves, find
out and rectify our own faults, without ignoring, of course, various
external factors.
Q: Dalits and
Tribals were used by Hindutva forces on a major scale in the recent
anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat. How do you look at the issue of Dalit-Muslim
relations in Gujarat today?
A: The Hindutvawadis
want to turn Muslims into the new 'Untouchables', and for this they
are using Dalits and Tribals, also victims of Hindutva oppression, against
us. And this tactic has been adopted not only in Gujarat, but elsewhere
too. The problem is that the elites among the Dalits desperately want
to pass off as 'Hindus' and crave to be accepted by the 'upper' caste
Hindus, which explains, in part, how and why they have been willing
to be used to attack and kill Muslims on a massive scale. This is also
reflected in the fact that now some Dalits even practice untouchability
vis-à-vis Muslims, seeking, thereby, to pass off as 'super-Brahmins'.
But of course this cannot serve the interests of the Dalit masses in
the long run, because they are victims of the caste system, which the
Hindutvawadis want to preserve and reinforce. Elite Dalits want to deny
their Dalit roots and pass off as 'Hindus', but because of this they
cannot work for the interests of their own people.