Under a cloud of FUD

Jumah or Friday is the day of sabbath for followers of Islam. The Quran highlights the importance of Friday as a sacred day of worship. The Jumah prayers replace the usual noon ritual prayer. The faithful make it a point to go to the Friday prayers in a mosque. Mosques overflow that day – only to become largely deserted again till the next Friday noon.

The Jumah prayer is preceded by a khutbah -- a sermon. The Imam (priest) gets an opportunity to address the faithful. Typically, the sermon highlights vignettes from the life of the Prophet, the Hadith, explains Quranic precepts and the need to follow them, and how hell awaits those who do not.

The mosques are packed and the Imam, at the sight of this many devout, does get most enthusiastic. The sermons these last few months have, however, begun to take a more sombre tone. There is concern about the state of Muslims in the country. A deep angst is conveyed, but no solutions seem forthcoming. The sermons reflect the feeling of ‘fear, uncertainty and doubt’ (FUD) which have enveloped the community -- fear about the present, uncertainty about the future, and doubt about their identity.

What should the Muslim community do? Largely uneducated, with consequent high levels of unemployment, living in ghettos in cities and towns across the country, leaderless and restless, they are vulnerable. They feed on each other’s anxiety. This is a perfect recipe for many entering the slippery slope of crime. FUD also makes them easy targets for radical elements to mislead them into anti-social, even anti-national, activities.

And this is unfortunate. Islam as it was conceived was a religion focussed on the pursuit of knowledge. The Quran urges man to think, ponder, reflect and acquire knowledge. It stresses the need for, and obligation on, everybody to pass on knowledge, to teach and spread awareness.

Indian Muslims have fared poorly. While Muslims constitute nearly 15% of the population, they are educationally amongst the most backward. The 2006 Sachar Committee Report had starkly brought out the dire educational, employment and social status of Muslims in India. The report speaks of their employment levels in government being the lowest among all socio-religious categories. The levels of poverty, consumption and standard of living among Muslims is also abysmal. Prof Amitabh Kundu’s report, which steered the post-Sachar Evaluation Committee, suggests that nothing much has changed since.

A constant debate is whether madrasas have contributed to the sorry state of Muslims. This, notwithstanding the Sachar Report pointing out that only about 3% of school-going Muslim children go to madrasas, which thrive in the economically weaker parts of the country. And therein lies a tale. They thrive not necessarily because the populace there is more religious, but because the madrasas offer an opportunity to the poor to get a possible livelihood in the future in mosques. So, madrasas provide an essential outlet for a section of the population.

Having said that, madrasa education needs to become broad-based. If these students can recite from 600 pages of religious text in a foreign language in about three years, they surely have ability. Open school education is so easily available, these students should also simultaneously pass Class 12 schooling and obtain undergraduate and graduate degrees. With proper teachers and guidance, they can master the secular subjects. The students emerging from the madrasas currently go on to man mosques across the country and play an influential role in the community. They should be equipped to handle a modern, multi-cultural society. Many madrasas are making the transition -- and the students have emerged to play roles in secular environments.

But the larger Muslim community is not in madrasas. The tragedy is that this large section of Muslims – perfunctorily religious, at best observing the Friday prayers and festivals -- is also falling into the FUD pit. The relentless focus of this large group should be on education, and on education leading to employability. Education uplifts, it empowers. Education enables one to compete and participate in society. More educational institutions to cater to this large group need to be established. The obligatory Zakath -- 2.5% of savings toward charity which most Muslims render -- needs to be pooled and used for collective community causes with a focus on education, instead of being used for individual causes.

Self-introspection is required, but the community can ill-afford to wallow in self-pity. The mosques have a critical role to play. Unused except for regular prayers, and which are sparsely attended except for Friday prayers, they are located in dense Muslim mohallas. With imaginative leadership, the mosques can act as magnets to get the faithful back -- not only for prayers but for debate and discussions. The mosques can be used to impart education and vocational skills. The small percentage of educated, better-off Muslims should step forward to work closely with the Imams and assist in the uplift of the rest of the community.

The Muslim community should not fall into the trap of a self-fulfilling prophesy – arising from a feeling of victimhood, that the whole world is against them – and should stop working to fulfil it. It is not going to be easy. There is a huge trust deficit – and that is a bridge which is going to be challenging to cross. The fact that the Muslims of India are not a homogenous group and lack a pan-India acceptable leadership does not help matters. Small pockets of enlightened local leadership have to emerge and carry on their shoulders the rest of the community.

It is not good for the country when 200 million of its people are living in a state of FUD. Everybody needs to work together to uplift the community. Only then will there be light at the end of the dark tunnel of FUD.

(The writer is a former chairman of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs)