Stake Five

Earlier this month, in the Indian Express, Mufti Abdul Rashid, the principal of the largest madarsa in Srinagar, Darul Uloom Bilaliya , was quoted as saying:

“If madarsas produce terrorists, then shouldn’t Kashmir be the most peaceful state (in India)?”

I would link to the article if I could, but I can’t find it online, so here are are the figures quoted that I found particularly interesting. Darul Uloom Bilaliya has seen just 175 students pass out since its inception 16 years ago. According to the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee, only 1729 boys and 962 girls are studying in madarsas in Kashmir, one of the lowest enrollment rates in India. In comparison, numbers run to several thousands in other states, and to hundreds of thousands in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Mufti Abdul Rashid has an explanation for the low enrollment rate in madarsas in Kashmir:

“You are more concerned about your religious identity if you are in a minority, but Kashmiri Muslims are a majority population, so the insecurities are less.”

The article goes on to point out that many of the students are from rural areas and poor families, and new admissions are mostly orphans of violence.

So why did this article catch my eye? It reminds us that religion does not an extremist/terrorist/fundamentalist make.

Neither Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, nor any other major religion, preaches violence, but each has seen violence done in its name. As Anasuya likes to point out, it’s surprising how similar the extremists of any religion sound; it’s almost as though they follow a separate creed of their own, of intolerance and hatred. Violence done in the name of a religion, Islam or any other, does not make that religion evil, nor does it make the vast majority of peaceful followers of that religion evil.

These prejudices are, unfortunately, as much a product of those who spout them at their media pulpits, as they are of our own upbringing. Even today I hear talk of “those Muslims”, of lower castes and untouchables, both amongst acquaintances and (less obviously) in the mainstream media. When children are brought up surrounded by these messages, how will they treat those different than themselves, other than with intolerance?

So here’s my idealist wish for 2007 - that more of us come to accept and embrace difference, rather than rejecting and fearing it.

Notes for readers not familiar with the Indian subcontinent:

Kashmir is a Muslim-majority state in India that has been wracked by sectarian violence for close to 20 years, much of it allegedly supported by the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency. India and Pakistan have fought 3 wars over Kashmir, contributing none at all to the stability of the region.

Madarsa is an Urdu word, derived from the Arabic “madrasah”, which literally means “school”. Madarsas are Islamic religious schools, which provide free education. Islamic studies are often supplemented by courses in mathematics, literature, vocational skills, and other regular primary school subjects. The closest Occidental parallel would be a cross between a seminary and a convent school.

Welcome to India, the land of the free, where the government blocks access to bits of the Internet whenever it gets in that techno-bashing mood. What, you haven’t heard? If you’re in India and you get your news from Typepad or Blogspot, of course you haven’t! Heaping stupidity upon lunacy, only Typepad and Blogspot have been blocked - LiveJournal and WordPress are still available.

We are told that terrorists use blogs to communicate; that this is merely a security measure. Well, terrorists use telephones, email, plain old vocal chords and sign language too… So let’s see now - I’m a blogger, I have a telephone, I have email, the ol’ vox box seems to be in working order and all ten fingers wiggling happily. Ergo, I’m a terrorist?

For info on circumventing the block, see this. Interestingly enough, one of the sites helping bypass the block, pkblogs.com, was originally setup to allow Pakistani bloggers freedom of expression when they had access to blogs blocked.

This police action is particularly worrisome in the light of the media and communications bill currently wending its way through the Lok Sabha. I haven’t had the time to read the full text of the bill yet, but I understand that it would, amongst other things, allow the government full control of media outlets when they see fit. Newspaper exposes nasty corruption scandal? No worries, shut ‘em down! Not a happy state of affairs at all.

On the subject of government and media control elsewhere in the world, the Stevens Bill is another monster to look out for. Check out the DPS Project for proposals to preserve net neutrality. Think this doesn’t affect you? Verizon’s new routers already have the capability for preferential routing built in. Big Brother is not only watching, he’s deciding where you should go, what you should do, and he ain’t letting on that you’re suddenly cruising his private payola version of the Internet.

India was again the victim of brutal terrorist attacks on Tuesday, 11th July. I would have, and probably should have, posted about this earlier, but somehow could not bring myself to do it. It really is easier to live in denial of violence rather than to accept the reality of its existence. Let me add my voice to the chorus already commiserating with the victims and their families and condemning the attack.

It is a tribute to the people of Mumbai that the aftermath of the blasts was not marred by communal violence, in a city that has already seen too much of it. The operative word in Islamic terrorist is terrorist. The same goes for any other group promoting violence as a means to their own ends. The communities that these terrorists may claim to be representing are largely peaceful folks just trying to get on with their lives.

Violence begets violence. Acting violently against terrorists or, more importantly, against their perceived consituencies only creates young men and women growing up in fear and anger, ripe for recruitment. Mumbai knows this, and so, her many disparate communities keep the peace amongst themselves that the city might be a safer place to live, that they can represent the plural society that India is. There is much we can learn from their example.