A review of #NLHafta: Love and a little bit of tough love

Dear Karthik & the NL Hafta Team,

The weekly discussions from the NL Hafta team are quite informative and thought-provoking, even provocative in some instances (which I am sure gives Abhinandan great sadistic pleasure).

Speaking on behalf of myself, I must say your podcasts bring a sense of ensemble to my otherwise mundane car rides from my workplace. I am digging the addition of Deepanjana to the cast, in her endearing ‘convent-English’, she provides a unique voice to the already formidable experience of Madhu. Speaking of Madhu, one of the reasons I like Madhu is her ability to speak with conviction and be honest about her preferences (viz. the national anthem debate or dabble in spirituality or taking up the very valid case of ageism that exists in our society). I must confess, I do miss Arunabh’s irreverent approach to all things which are not Manu Jospeph.

Anand continues to amaze and frustrate me in equal measure for his penchant for data crunching and appallingly frequent use of the word ‘appalling’.  Guys – on the whole, you’ve done a great job getting a more diverse permanent panel (the gender composition is now reflective of our country).

I also appreciate the inclusion of more South and West of India voices (some of the best episodes feature guests who had something to say from those places, like this one chap from The Hindu and this other Uncle from Punjab – their names escape me but I am sure you know who I am referring to). Another thing that NL always did well — was its coverage of the North East and Dalit issues. In fact, Anand’s piece on Dr Ambedkar was, dare I say, eye-opening and really well-written.

Now, speaking on behalf of all 172 Million Indian Muslims (because apparently everyone else in your panel also does the same, with the honourable exception of Manisha). For jannat’s sake, for the life of me, I can’t fathom why you don’t include a Muslim or someone ‘culturally close to the Indian Muslim community’ in your discussion when debating Indian Muslim issues. (Thanks to the present sarkar don’t we have plenty of such opportunities to do so?) Now please don’t say we know what you feel, we have many Muslim friends or because “mere Bhatinda ke tao jee’s kaam waali bai’s son is married to one”. This ham-handedness infuriates us to no end (notice the use of plurals in this email). Mind you, we don’t need a Mian bhai for the sake of having a biryani whilst listening, but what we need is someone who knows this much-misunderstood and poorly represented Indian community which has roots in India for a thousand years (so sad that I actually had to type that last bit, despite knowing that neither of you are obnoxious or sanghi in spirit, I guess it’s an auto-reflex reaction in the times we are living in).

 What we need on the panel (at least occasionally) is someone who understands the rich Indian Muslim heritage and has an appreciation of the socio-cultural background and challenges facing the Indian Muslim community (someone from the Sachar committee perhaps or a developmental expert).

At one level, when Abhinandan ventures off sporadically to quote Ghalib (mashallah bidu) — I admit this gives us a sense of ‘chalo theek hai, kuch to pata hai isko’ — but on another level, this is incredibly sad: that today we have to consign a Ghalib (who really is an pan-Indian Legend like Tagore) to a token Muslim rep. Here I’d like to add that taking inspiration from the likes of the anathemic

Bill Maher (sorry Abhinandan, but your fascination with him is a little lopsided, he is right on the money when it comes to freedom of speech but has scant understanding of the religious-cultural intersection of the American Muslim community) over, say, the likes of Dalia Mogahed or Linda Sarsour or even Hassan Minhaj and Aasif Mandvi is telling (if you have had to google these names, then I rest my case).

I realise that this email is getting dangerously long – perhaps it should have been sent in as an ‘opinion piece’ rather than a podcast review. Thus, with your permission, allow me to point out one glaring example of the appallingly poor (happy now, Anand?) understanding of the issues in the postscript of this email.

In closing, I hope to benefit from your reportage and observations for many Eids to come, and though I am primarily based in the Middle East now, I have the opportunity to frequent our bharat mata on a quarterly basis for work. Maybe someday, we can get to meet in person or over the phone, where I would be happy to banter over a cup of Kashmiri chai and samosa.

This lack of cognisance aside, all of you are doing a fine job in entertaining and informing your listeners with the mundane and the profound. And that is quite an achievement in itself.

Khudahafiz and Toodles!

Husain Quadri

Post-script:

In this last, E067 of the NL Hafta, I appreciate that you all debated the internal reform movements (or lack thereof) within the Indian Muslim community. Some of you sounded optimistic, others were more sceptical. At one level, Anand is right, reform within the Indian Muslim community is not an easy matter, it is an almost gargantuan task. But he is only superficially correct when he says that reform within the community has to mean reform of Islam itself. This is both correct and incorrect depending on the assumption you hold. Allow me to offer two reasons for the state of where we find the Indian Muslim community:

1. The Indian Muslim community has suffered post-1880s from the colonial era. As a result it has plunged into the depths of ignorance, tokenism and in some cases down right discrimination. Admittedly, in some cases, these wounds have been self-inflicted and have been exacerbated by delving into a ‘victimisation’ narrative. The lack of truly informational leadership such as that of Dr Ambedkar for the Dalits has been felt acutely.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was one such heroic figure who was rather unfortunately pushed to the sidelines, post-independence and has now been almost completely forgotten from public memory. Had he been given the charge of Ministries, which he so deserved and had he lived longer, my hunch is our story just may have turned out a little differently.

2. By the same yardstick, we should also admit the issues of neglect, xenphobia, terror, chauvinism (from all sides) and downright racism from fundamentalist sections of the by and large tolerant Hinterland is also at fault. I will not insult your intelligence by giving you examples of radical saffronisation and false vote bank politics.

Now let us consider the state of some other communities where Muslims have thrived. For instance, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, and so on, which together roughly make up 20 per cent of the entire global Muslim population, have many reasons to carry the bastion of integrated and thriving Muslim communities.

Turkey is an interesting case, it is predominantly Sunni Muslim, but governance-wise it was staunchly secular for the vast majority of its post-independence period. Turkey’s recent economic success has been almost entirely based on social and financial inclusion of practicing Muslims in its everyday life (I concede that off-late it is flirting with dictatorial leadership and has unfortunately resorted to heavy handedness of the free press) but guess what, at the ground level, the social and civic progress has been tangible. Religious practice and social openness go hand in hand in these lands. Likewise, Women in South East Asia in Muslim majority regions are equal members of the population at all levels. What is it that they have that Indian Muslims don’t, you might ask? Well the answer is unsurprisingly (and almost blithely) obviously: Education, Engagement and Empowerment. When you don’t have these three, any community gets narrow-minded in its approach and has to journey from a very dark place in its psyche to come back up.

Manisha (despite admitting her lack of Islamic credentials) tried to point out the internal reform from the Indian Muslim community on the triple-talaq issue (which by the way is outlawed in most democratic Muslim majority countries including Pakistan #thehorror) or the Hijab issue (which she rightly said from text refers to ‘modesty’ and not a Taliban-style burqa). Alas, as usual, her voice got drowned out by Anand’s drone assault. Anand’s frequent flagellation of the Mahashe Rajpal or his other pet-peeve at the perceived indignation of the Kamlesh Tiwari episode smacks of ‘whataboutery’ and ‘insinuation’. Ughhh…I would need to write a separate article to argue this case.

Islam, as a faith, is more heterogeneous than what Anand makes it out to be. In the context of insult to the religion and the Prophet, the principles of the faith passionately tell its believers to “Be tolerant, command what’s right, pay no attention to foolish people” [7:199]. At another instance, it argues for level-headedness and maturity in the face of satire and mischief: “The Servants of the Lord of Mercy are those who walk humbly on Earth, and who, when the foolish address them, reply ‘Peace’” [25:63]. At another place, it espouses tolerance and acceptance of the ‘non-Muslims’ when it says: “Do not revile those they call on beside God, so they, in their hostility, revile God, without knowledge” [6:108].

Coming back to the issue mentioned, do note that the report of the Select Committee preceding the enactment of Section 295(A) is significant. It stated that the purpose of the Section was to punish persons who indulge in wanton vilification or attacks upon the religion of any particular group or class or upon the founders and prophets of a religion. It however also emphasized that ”an insult to a religion or to the religious beliefs of the followers of a religion might be inflicted in good faith by a writer with the object of facilitating some measure of social reform by administering such a shock to the followers of the religion as would ensure notice being taken of any criticism so made”.

Therefore the Committee recommended that the words ”with deliberate and malicious intention” be inserted in the Section. Of all people it was Jinnah, lo-and behold, as a member of the Committee, who wisely stressed the necessity of securing ”the fundamental principle that those who are engaged in historical works, those who are engaged in the ascertainment of truth and those who are engaged in bona fide and honest criticisms of a religion shall be protected”.

I do not deny that the law and the spirit of the law has not been upheld in cases since then, but from my posit, had it been implemented properly, it could have served as an important stablising force. So, from my perspective, it’s not the law, it’s the application of it. In the same vein, abolishing every part of it will not serve us any better.

In conclusion, does the law need a change? Certainly, our malpractice has showed that. Does it need to be scrapped altogether? I don’t think so, it can serve as a deterrent. Does it need to be enforced more? Jahannum No!

We can agree to disagree on this point but what we cannot do is to vilify the approach of the ‘other’.

Mazrat ke saath for the unedifying length of this plea.