Social and Religious Tolerance Is Practical Necessity for Unity and Integrity in India
By
Jagdish Rattanani
August 25,
2020
In a course
on journalism that I taught years ago, one exercise I often asked was for the
class to roam around Mumbai’s famous Mohammed Ali Road during the holy month of
Ramadan and pick up sights, sounds, stories as the fast is broken and the
feasting begins at sun set.
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One of my
students that year was a local area police officer who had in the past been
asked to investigate how and why lodges and rooms for rent filled up with
Muslims from across the country exactly at the time the police want ED to
ensure that the festival passes off peacefully.
That was a
massive investigation one particular year with entries from lodges, background
checks, local intelligence etc. amid suspicion that something was amiss.
Wearing the hat of a student-journalist, this policeman came back surprised at
what he found when he roamed free with an eye not for the criminal but for the
story.
Thousands
of people, he discovered, came to throng that road for small and tiny
businesses – selling henna to trinkets to some other local designs and delights
of Lucknow and from the further interiors of India. This was the month they
made enough to last and lived on it back in their towns for the rest of the
year. This was a religious festival but it brought booming business and
attracted thousands, most of them Muslims, year after year to Mumbai during the
month. As the roles changed, the stories changed and new facts came to light
for this police officer.
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Call it
prejudice, worry or abundant caution at a time of stress for the police – what
is clear is that who you are determines what you see, and what you see will be
the colour of the lens you wear.
It is one
thing for police to do their duty with careful checking, particularly in times
when Ramadan coincides with other festivals as it does some years. It is a more serious matter when large parts
of officialdom led by the political establishment of the day are so coloured
with prejudice that we find actions that are wholly untenable and in fact bring
down the stature of this great nation for citizens, visitors and in the eyes of
the world. This is precisely what the Bombay High Court has found in the case
of the Tableeghi Jamaat – loud and naked abuse of power to target a minority
community and paint its members as a set of people who were on a mission not of
faith but allegedly to spread Covid-19 in India.
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Here is a landmark judgment that goes well beyond the immediate case to set out red flags on the way in which malicious propaganda is spread, scapegoats are found and the law applied selectively on religious grounds.
The
judgment is unrelated to but comes coincidentally at a time there is a rising
tide of support for the lawyer Prashant Bhushan as he stands up to a case of
contempt in the Supreme Court for questioning the integrity of judges.
Amid that fear and worry on the state of the
judiciary, here is a case and a judgement that can allow all Indians to keep
faith and look up to the judiciary as a beacon of hope and protector of the
rights of ordinary people. In fact, the Bombay High Court comes out shining as
it grants cover in this case not to Indians but to minority community visitors
coming in from other countries, who do not normally enjoy the protections
accorded to citizens under Article 19 of the Constitution, and brings alive the
very Indian statement, Atitihi Devo Bhava.
How have we
really treated visitors who were in India on valid visas doing what many have
done years before them as they participated in the activities of the Tableeghi
Jamaat?
To quote
Justices T.V. Nalawade and M.G. Sewlikar, who delivered the 58-page order
dismissing the police case against nine foreign nationals and two Indians for
all kinds of allegations, including staying in a Masjid (when was this a
crime?) and preaching (which they were not) their faith: “In our culture, there
is a saying…that our guest is our God. The circumstances of the present matter
create a question as to whether we are really acting as per our great tradition
and culture. During the situation created by Covid-19 pandemic, we need to show
more tolerance and we need to be more sensitive towards our guests particularly
like the present petitioners. The allegations made show that instead of helping
them we lodged them in jails by making allegations that they are responsible
for violation of travel documents; they are responsible for spreading of virus
etc.”
The
Justices have demolished every single case sought to be made out against the
members of the Jamaat and in fact make three important points:
a) There was no intention of the police to go against the foreigners,
but Maharashtra filed the FIR after getting directions from the Central
government to do so.
b) The exercise was done by the
Central Government with the presumption that the visitors were already infected
when that contention cannot be substantiated.
c) The propaganda against the
so-called religious activity was unwarranted and it is now high time for the
concerned to repent and to take some positive steps to repair the damage done
by such action.
The
Justices don’t stop there. They see the “smell of malice” against foreigners
and Muslims, they point out that action was taken mainly against Muslims who
had come to Markaz Delhi for the Tableeghi Jamaat. The High Court then sends
out a message that needs to be told and heard again and again: “Social and
religious tolerance is practical necessity for unity and integrity in India and
that is also made compulsory by our Constitution. By hard work over the past
years after independence we have reconciled religion and modernity to a great
extent. This approach helps participation of most in developing process. We
have been respecting both religious and secular sensibilities since
independence and by this approach we have kept India as united.”
Away from
the judgment, common sense would dictate that India should act differently.
Would India have the Tableeghi Jamaat, an Indian movement with over 90 years of
standing, meet in India or would it rather have it meet in Afghanistan or
Pakistan? Why should we cede the ground we proudly hold and why should India
not welcome and offer space to people of all faiths from across the world to
see and live the idea of tolerance? Except that tolerance is now history in our
land and an Indian version of the Taliban is sought to be drafted by those in
power.
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Jagdish
Rattanani is a journalist and a faculty member at SPJIMR (Syndicate: The
Billion Press)
Original
Headline: “The smell of malice" and how it breaks India
Source: The Greater Kashmir