The discrete charm of the Syedna

PMs, irrespective of the political party they belonged to, have enjoyed a special relationship with the Dawoodi Bohra establishment since Indira Gandhi’s reign

“Neither PM nor CM, I’m a member of your family,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Dawoodi Bohras at the inauguration of their academy in Mumbai on February 10.

He wasn't exaggerating. Prime Ministers, irrespective of the political party they belonged to, have enjoyed a special relationship with the Dawoodi Bohra establishment since Indira Gandhi’s reign, as the late Bohra reformist leader Asghar Ali Engineer found. From Rajiv Gandhi to V P Singh, A B Vajpayee to Manmohan Singh, none of them supported the reformists who challenged the absolute power exercised over the community by its head, the Syedna; instead, they preferred to grace occasions hosted by him.

In 2011, as Gujarat Chief Minister, Modi invited the community to celebrate the 100th birthday of the then Syedna Burhanuddin in Gujarat; days after the latter’s death in January 2014, Modi came to Mumbai to offer condolences to his son and successor Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin.

Such cordiality towards a Muslim religious head by a politician who as Chief Minister refused to wear a skull cap offered by an imam, that too during a Sadbhavana fast, may seem strange but it isn’t unique. The original Hindutva icon, Bal Thackeray, too, had a special fondness for the Syedna and his followers; testimony recorded by the B N Srikrishna Commission of Inquiry into the 1992-93 Mumbai riots revealed that the Shiv Sena chief had asked his “boys” to stop attacks on a particular building where Bohras lived, calling them “our people”. (Srikrishna Commission Report, Vol II, Chapter 3,Para 9.6) Such benevolence, alas, didn’t prevent Bohras from being killed elsewhere in Mumbai. Interestingly, Bal Thackeray’s son Uddhav Thackeray met Syedna Mufaddal at his new academy days after Modi’s visit.

Modi’s meeting with Syedna Muffadal Saifuddin spelt bad news for another category of dissenters that has emerged since 2015: women who’ve been speaking up against the practice of female genital mutilation, an issue so sensitive that even the reformists never mentioned it. Performed by a midwife when a girl turns seven, the practice is carried out so furtively that most often, fathers don’t even come to know.

The way this issue has been handled by the Centre is revealing. In 2017, then Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi spoke of introducing a ban on it if the Syedna didn’t ban it himself. The same year, the Attorney General, supporting the PIL filed against it in the Supreme Court by a (Hindu) petitioner, described female genital mutilation as a violation of fundamental rights. But a year later, he’d changed his stand, supporting instead the group of Bohra women who’d intervened claiming it formed part of their community’s religious practices. The Supreme Court referred the matter to a five-judge Constitution Bench that is set to decide conflicts between individual rights and essential religious practices, including the Sabarimala case.

Little surprise that Syedna Mufaddal advocates female genital mutilation.

The secret of the Syedna’s enduring popularity among those in power lies in the very quality the reformists resist. Rarely has a community head exercised the kind of hold over his community that the Syedna does. Every member of the million-strong trading community of Dawoodi Bohras worldwide (10-12 lakh in India) must swear allegiance to him, take his permission for every decision, and pay him taxes from birth to death. The Bohra establishment's wealth is legion; in fact, an important part of the legal battle currently being fought in Mumbai between the two rival claimants to the post of Syedna relates to ownership of the community’s innumerable trusts and properties.

The only politician to have resisted this formidable clout was Morarji Desai. In 1949, as Home Minister of Bombay Province, he passed a law banning excommunication, the ultimate weapon wielded by the establishment against anyone who defies the Syedna’s writ. The resulting social boycott cuts off the ‘offender’ from not just the community but also from their immediate family; they are refused entry into mosques and burial in community cemeteries. Acts that have invited excommunication have ranged from questioning the conduct of the Amils (priests) who are the Syedna’s eyes and ears, to keeping your shop open instead of shutting it to attend the mosque during the Syedna’s sermons.

In 1962, the Supreme Court struck down the ban on ex-communication citing Article 26 of the Constitution (the freedom of every religious denomination to manage its own affairs). It took half a century for this decision to be sent for review by the same court to a Constitution Bench. The five-judge bench that did so earlier this month, observed that a balance would have to be struck between Article 26 and Article 21 (the right to life).

By the time the Constitution Bench gives its verdict, how many Bohras will be socially boycotted, how many girls genitally mutilated?

Jyoti Punwani is a senior journalist. Twitter: @jyotipunwani.

(The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)