By New Age Islam Edit
Desk
27 November
2020
• Love
Jihad Is An Excuse For Inefficiency
By Markandey Katju
• Ambedkar's Fears Of 'War On Muslims' Have
Come True. So Why Celebrate Constitution Day?
By S.N. Sahu
• Has Srinagar Lost Its Sheen?
By Abid Rashid Baba
• Can Artificial Intelligence Outsmart Humans?
By Dr Mohammad Amin Malik
-----
Love Jihad Is An Excuse For Inefficiency
By Markandey Katju
7 November
2020
There is a
lot of talk of “love jihad” these days in the country. The Uttar Pradesh (UP)
Government has approved an Ordinance against it, providing for long jail
sentences as well as heavy fines, and a Bill called the UP Prohibition of
Unlawful Conversions Bill, 2020 is proposed to be introduced in the UP
Legislature shortly. The hilly States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand
already have such laws and the Madhya Pradesh Government, too, has said that
marriages to enable “forcible religious conversions” would invite an
imprisonment of up to 10 years, extending the proposed period of maximum
punishment for the alleged offence from the five years announced earlier. There
is also a requirement to take the District Magistrate’s permission for
converting to marry in UP. The Haryana Government, too, is proposing to bring a
law against it.
The
expressions “love jihad” and “forced conversion” are vague and liable to any
number of interpretations. India is largely a conservative country, and most
parents want their children (particularly women) to marry within their own
religion. So, when the latter fall in love with someone who belongs to another
religion, the parents often file a police report, alleging that their daughter
was beguiled and abducted.
Whatever
the term “love jihad” may mean, my experience as a lawyer for 20 years and a
judge for another 20 is that in most cases, there is no such thing as a “forced
conversion.” In many of the cases which came before me as a Supreme Court
judge, the FIR was usually filed by the family or the father of the woman
alleging that the woman/daughter had been duped and hoodwinked, and/or abducted
and forced to marry by a man from a different religion. But when I summoned the
woman (and I was satisfied that she was above 18 years of age) she invariably
told me that she had married the young man of her own free will and there was
no coercion.
It is
alleged by Right wing elements that “love jihad” is different from love
marriage. According to them, a love marriage takes place because the couple genuinely love each other,
whereas “love jihad” is not motivated by love but is a conversion conspiracy by
Muslims. It is alleged that Muslim men often conceal their names and other
particulars and beguile and dupe girls from different religions, particularly
Hindus, into marriage with false allurement. To my mind, this is a bogus claim
and never in my judicial experience have I found any basis for it.
I submit
that “love jihad” is only a gimmick, intended to divert public attention from
the steep decline in India’s economy, appalling rise in child malnourishment,
steep rise in prices of foodstuff and fuel, continuing farmers’ distress,
rapes, acid attacks, rise in other crimes, corruption, pollution, major issues
on the country’s borders vis-a-vis the standoff with China and frequent
skirmishes with Pakistan. Amid all these pressing issues of national
importance, a false narrative and hue and cry has been created that young women
are deceived, enticed and forcibly converted to Islam for marriage. There may
be a few such stray instances (though not to my knowledge), but my belief, on
the basis of my long judicial experience, is that almost all inter-religious
marriages are voluntary love marriages. Also, no data is given of Muslim women
marrying Hindu men, which is of course regarded as “ghar wapasi (a
homecoming).”
I need not
go into the legal validity of such “love jihad” marriages though the Supreme
Court in the Shakti Vahini vs. Union of India
case (2018), the Arumugam Servai vs. State of Tamil Nadu case (2011),
Lata Singh vs. State of UP case (2006), and in the recent Division Bench
decision of the Allahabad High Court, held inter-religious marriages valid.
But the big
question is how many of such marriages take place in the country? In India’s
population of 138 crore people, one can count them on one’s fingertips. So it
is not that hordes of Hindu girls or women from other communities are
clamouring to tie the knot with Muslim men. It is not as if such marriages are
threatening to change India’s demography and make it a Muslim-majority country,
as is portrayed by some people.
The real
issues before the country right now are widespread poverty, starvation deaths,
the raging pandemic, almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education
for the masses, record, rising unemployment, lack of opportunities and so on.
Since the Government has no idea how to resolve these, it does what all other
populist governments have done in the past. It seeks to divert public attention
and create a bogeyman, resorting to gimmicks and stunts. “Love jihad” is the
latest one (the earlier ones being abrogation of Article 370, the Citizenship
Amendment Act and so on.)
This bogey
has the advantage of further polarising society on religious lines, which
admirably serves some vested interests and also translates into votes for
others. It gives a handle to vigilante groups to harass and attack couples.
“Honour killings”, which are already a menace, will become more common as the
days go by.
The Roman
emperors used to say, “If you cannot give the people bread, give them
circuses”, and Queen Marie Antoinette of France reportedly said, “If the people
do not have bread, let them eat cake.” Our own emperors say, “Since we cannot
give the people bread or employment, we must give them the apparition of ‘love
jihad’”.
------
Markandey Katju
is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India
https://www.dailypioneer.com/2020/columnists/love-jihad-is-an-excuse-for-inefficiency.html
------
Ambedkar's Fears of 'War on Muslims' Have Come
True, So Why Celebrate Constitution Day?
By S.N. Sahu
27 November
2020
Women
protesters at Jamia Millia Islamia during the anti-CAA and NRC protests. Photo:
Ismat Ara
-----
It is
indeed paradoxical that the celebration of the Constitution Day on November 26
every year – made possible by an announcement by the Narendra Modi government
in 2015 – is accompanied by an unleashing of forces and creation of conditions
by the NDA government for the all-around assault on the constitution itself.
The ominous
developments in this regard are best represented by vicious and violent
targeting of those who dissent and protest against numerous policies and
legislations compromising the rights enshrined in the constitution, and
particularly the rights of minorities and Muslims to lead a dignified life.
The
strategy to polarise society by employing majoritarianism and slogans invoking
majoritarian images and sentiments grimly remind warnings of Dr B.R. Ambedkar
that India would face calamities if the idea of ‘Hindu rashtra’ were to become
a reality. He, therefore, advocated measures to resist and defeat the idea of
Hindu rashtra.
Distorting
Hindu-Muslim relations
On this
Constitution Day, while recalling the historic and revolutionary significance
of the adoption of the constitution on November 26, 1949, one is reminded of
the words of Ambedkar who referred to the alarming articulations of leaders who
spoke of waging a war against Muslims, and thought of giving it a spin as a war
against Britishers. These remarks relate to Ambedkar made during the discussion
on December 17, 1946, on the Objectives Resolution moved by Jawaharlal Nehru in
the Constituent Assembly.
He sternly
cautioned that “…if war comes in this country and if that war has any relation
to the issue with which we are confronted today, it will not be a war on the
British. It will be a war on the Muslims”.
On Basic
Structure Doctrine, Rulings of the SC's First Five Judges Inspire Hope
Voicing
anxiety and fear that “…if there is anybody who has in his mind the project of
solving the Hindu-Muslim problem by force, which is another name of solving it
by war… in order that the Muslims may be subjugated”, he feared in such context
” [t]his country would be involved in perpetually conquering, them”.
Muslim
‘othering’, reminiscent of pre-Partition days
From 2014
onwards numerous attempts have been made to project Muslims as the ‘other’ and
to spread poison in the society to disturb communal amity, deliberately
promoting discord in the society.
Many of
them have been lynched for their so-called ‘beef-eating’ habits. They have been
targeted violently for their dress and even some people of other faiths have
also faced violence from police just because they sported a beard and ‘looked
like’ Muslims.
The use of
the term “termite” by none other than the home minister of India to describe
illegal people entering India from across the border has the subtext of
pointing an accusing finger at the Muslims of our country.
And now,
the criminalisation of love of an interfaith couple, especially that of Hindu
and Muslim communities, by invoking Love Jihad in spite of the overwhelming
absence of evidence to corroborate such manufactured toxicity clearly
constitutes an attack on the life and liberty, which are at the core of the
constitution.
Attacking
Muslims relentlessly to make them feel that they are not equal citizens is
nothing but a war that has to be continued on a sustained basis, and in the
words of Ambedkar, ” to perpetually conquering them”.
Such an
approach is manifested in the menacing statement of Uttar Pradesh chief
minister Yogi Adityanath who said that Muslim men would have to “embrace death”
in case the Hindu women they marry converts to Islam.
A few days
back he said, “I warn those who conceal their identity and play with our
sisters’ respect – if you don’t mend your ways, your Ram naam saty‘ (invocation
of Lord Ram’s name when a dead body is taken for cremation) journey will
begin.”
The
chilling death threat is evocative of a declaration of war which Ambedkar had
seen unfolding in the pre-partition days of 1946. Such hateful utterances of an
elected chief minister 71 years after the adoption of the constitution is a
replay of tragic times when the Constituent Assembly had just embarked on the
audacious adventure of framing the constitution. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi saw in
the work of constitution-making a remedy to the problem of communalism.
The
draconian ordinance Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion,
2020, promulgated just a few days before the Constitution Day this year has the
sole intention of criminalising interfaith marriage and love. This is a direct
assault on Article 21 of the constitution, which guarantees the fundamental
right to life and liberty. Many other BJP-ruled states have declared that such
legislations would be introduced to counter Love Jihad.
Equally
tragic is to dub the selection of students professing Islamic faith to civil
service based on merit and rational criteria being described by a TV channel as
UPSC Jihad. Thankfully courts have imposed restrictions on the telecast of such
programmes, while the Centre did not impose any ban despite pointing out the
objectionable content.
Calls for
revenge
When
protests erupted against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) involving Muslims
and people of various faiths across the country including Uttar Pradesh, it was
quite bizarre to note the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh vowing to take
revenge against protestors. Such calls of retribution for exercising the
constitutional right of protest is a war on people, and therefore, war on the
constitution itself.
Ambedkar
had expressed consternation in 1946 in the Constituent Assembly by saying that
“I am appalled at the idea that anybody in this country should think of solving
the political problems of this country by the method of war”.
He would
have been more appalled and outraged at the way in which elected leaders and
occupants of high constitutional offices in India of 2020 are waging war
against the constitution by violently targeting Muslims, students, and those
who question the government.
Use of
force condemned
It would be
instructive to note that Ambedkar had invoked Edmund Burke who disapproved of
the British efforts to apply force against the rebellious colonies of the
United States to forcibly bring them under their hegemony.
Burke had
said, “First, … permit me to observe, that the use of force alone is but
temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of
subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be
conquered.”
He
continued, ” My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the
effect of force, an amendment is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are
without resource for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing,
no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes
bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by impoverished and
defeated violence….”
Ambedkar’s
sage counsel on power
Those words
of Burke quoted by Ambedkar in the constituent assembly in 1946 assume deeper
relevance for our time marked by a pursuit of aggressive majoritarianism by
those who have the mandate to govern the country based on the constitution.
Further
drawing on Burke, Ambedkar further said, “It is easy to give power, it is
difficult to give wisdom.” Therefore, Ambedkar reminded the constituent
assembly that sovereign power should be exercised with wisdom.
He then
asserted, “That is the only way by which we which we can carry with us all
sections of the country. There is no other way that can lead us to unity.”
Those with
the mandate to govern the country by following the constitution and
constitutional methods should ask themselves if the majoritarian approach
followed by them is consistent with the exercise of power with wisdom.
Their
entire muscular method of treating Muslims as the ‘other’ is unconstitutional
and would not help them to carry all sections of the country with them. The
sage counsel of Ambedkar to combine power with wisdom for governance means to
uphold the constitution eschewing retribution in the name of religion or any
other identity.
Let the
powers that be in 21st first century India be guided by that vision of Ambedkar
by steering clear of Love Jihad and other divisive agenda. That would be a
fitting tribute to the constitution on Constitution Day to defend the idea of
India.
------
S.N. Sahu served as an officer on special duty
and press secretary to former President of India, K.R. Narayanan.
https://thewire.in/communalism/ambedkars-fears-of-war-on-muslims-have-come-true-so-why-celebrate-constitution-day
------
Has Srinagar Lost Its Sheen?
By Abid Rashid Baba
November
27, 2020
Cities
talk, frown, smile, laugh, wail and rejoice, but their language can only be
heard by those who care to listen. Srinagar is a suffocating place. It is
shredded to pieces. The shards spread around-clinging and bleeding. Once called
Venice of the east, it has ceased to exist. After witnessing countless promises
and betrayals, it’s withered. It feels slow and somber. The sheen is gone.
Blood-spilled on its streets has turned it crimson red. It wants to cleanse its
stomach. Having cafés at every corner is not a sign of development, affordable
housing in the city is. Shopping complex boom is hurting the ecology. It does
no good to the city. No slums around water bodies should have been prioritized.
Srinagar is
shrinking, stinking and stinging. It has lost the social value of being a city.
Fresh streams, roaring rivulets, lovely lakes-all chocked. It presents a
ghostly look. It haunts. City is supposed to be free and fair. With no night
life, it is no less than a cage. If chirping of birds, Shikara ride and
houseboat stay is picture-perfect; curfew, cordon, crackdown taints the
image. Mushrooming of constructions on
flood channels, illegal and irregular sand-mining of Jhelum, coils of
concertina worsen the mess. This city is pathless. Walkways have been invaded.
The pavements meant for pedestrians are occupied by concertina wires. The fate
of this city seems tangled in a cobweb. It may take a lifetime to unwind knots
of the noose.
The
projection, profile and placement of this Nagar is not taken care of. From
municipal committees to development authorities, Srinagar seems waiting for
Godot to repair its damage. Who owns
this city is again an uncomfortable question for many of its residents. As
alterations in demography are visible from skies, the dwellers seem lost and
smiles seem evaporating from its air. The air quality index of Srinagar will
worsen as the air will also be full of particulate matter after some time. From
congested roads and lanes to silent and lonely colonies, the city seems breathless.
The liveliness has faded. It is an urban chaos now.
The
Economically Weaker Section (EWS) struggle to meet ends. People used to rush to
Srinagar to find work, which is now getting scarce. The condition of migrants
has worsened. The change in living conditions has pressed people to adopt the
traditional means in various sectors. With handful of manufacturing units, will
setting up of industries help generate employment? It is yet unknown if this
dream can be translated into reality? Sans consultations with urban planners,
the city continues to expand without any roadmap or any cap to its expansion.
Srinagar’s power corridor is equally helpless. There is basically no vision of
the way you want this city to grow. People at the helm are clueless as to how
we can make this city ecologically resilient.
Transportation
is a nightmare in Srinagar. No smooth rides. At any given time, you are stuck
in a gridlock. 2019 Action draft plan on Solid Waste Management reveals that
Srinagar produces 400 metric tons of waste each day. Ideally, it should be
dumped in a scientific landfill site. But there is none. Achan- located in the
heart of the city is being polluted under the very nose of the administration.
Stench emanating from the miscellaneous waste, which is not segregated, keeps
the residents away. Where will the tourists go? It was admitted by former
Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on the floor of the assembly. For the last
15 years, Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) is in search of a scientific
landfill site but they are not able to get the land.
Heritage
houses are crumbling under the heavy weight of master plan for this
not-so-smart city! Srinagar is going waterless. Protest falls on deaf ears. Who
to blame? Otherwise blessed with raw and organic beauty, Srinagar is getting
dirtier with passing time. Packs of
canines have become a source of fright. Srinagar has sixty thousand stray dogs.
Increase in canine attacks is no shocker.
In 2018,
Srinagar was listed as the tenth worst polluted city in the world according to
WHO’s global urban air pollution database. Urban Local Body and Municipal
Corporation can be held accountable for what they have done to this haphazard
city. And what do they intend to do with
it now? Why is the Pollution Control Board (PCB) mute when we seek answers to
pressing questions concerning the city? Garbage is being thrown into rivers in
bulk. Why is no action being taken? Even National Green Tribunal (NGT) is slow.
The cries,
shrieks, howls of this sad city are ear-piercing. Listen to the woes of the
residents, we learn that they are looking for an escape but they don’t have an
option. Cities entertain unlike Srinagar. Calling it an unlivable place is not
a hyperbole. Mushrooming of private vehicles honking endlessly, traffic gridlocks
at crucial junctions are just adding insult to the injury. Moving on from the
overview, to the anatomy of the city. The old, historical markets are dusty,
lanes are choked, drains are defunct, houses are huge but roads are rough.
Bus-stops and parking spaces are a rarity. The Entertainment industry died
three decades ago, so there is hardly any source of recreation, if any, and
activities are scarce. It is a dull, dreary city.
Famous
playgrounds of Srinagar have been encroached by locals long ago. The administration
has left no stone unturned either into turning this key-space for children,
into parks and government departments. Womenfolk have always been the worst
sufferers in downtown. They don’t own spaces. Women shape the identity of the
urban. But conflict has snatched this right from them in this part of the
globe. From shop-fronts to coffee-shops, it is all dominated by men. As an
Urban Fellow, when I toss these queries to people about women owning spaces, I
get cold looks. What is the source of recreation for the “other half” of the
city? People feign ignorance. For them, it has become forbidden.
With
markets unorganized, walkways invaded by vendors, messy traffic snarls,
obsolete mini-buses, Srinagar presents an unwelcome look. So, what is there to
boast about this city?
What is so
historic about it, now? Unless some radical steps are taken to resuscitate it, the city is already dying a silent death.
Will even the Smart City Mission be of any help?
https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/opinion/has-srinagar-lost-its-sheen/
----
Can Artificial Intelligence Outsmart Humans?
By Dr Mohammad Amin
Malik
November
27, 2020
If you tell
someone that your brain is like a computer, he/she might bubble over with
excitement. This is in effect a compliment for being quick, fast and accurate.
The computers are known for storing vast amount of information, processing and
retrieving data to solve problems with much higher speed and accuracy. But look
at the kind of work the scientists are doing over the last couple of decades.
They are trying hard to make computers think like human brains! The big
question is, can computers think like humans? Can these machines become smarter
and more intelligent than humans? This has been the subject of debate for
philosophers and computer scientists alike over the past several decades and
presents an ultimate challenge to the field of computer science. Unlike
computers, brain has an evolutionary past and is perhaps the most complex
object that is endowed with intelligence. But the technology is changing
quickly; the machines are becoming smarter at an astonishing pace benefiting
humankind in every possible measure. Never before in our history has such
profound changes been seen so close. The idea that ordinary humans will someday
be overtaken by artificially intelligent machines has moved from the realm of
science fiction to a serious scientific debate.
Alan Turing
was a genius British Mathematician and Logician who broke Germany’s most secret
codes during the World War-II. For his contributions, Winston Churchill had
possibly said that war was shortened by nearly two years which saved millions
of lives. While most people still don’t know Turing, the Time Magazine in 1999,
listed him among the 20th century’s hundred most influential scientists like
Albert Einstein, Alexander Fleming. In 1950 he wrote a seminal paper entitled
“Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” published in the philosophical journal
‘Mind’ where he asked a question ‘Can Machines Think’. He proposed a simple
test which came to be known as “Turing Test”. This was a time when the first
general purpose computers had just been built and the term AI had not even been
coined until in 1956 by John McCarthy, two years after Alan’s untimely tragic
death. Nevertheless, Turing’s ideas created a new field. As the name employs,
AI is the creation of human-like intelligence in machines. It is the technology
that enables machines to mimic human behavior. As a subject, AI is the theory
and development of computer systems able to perform tasks which normally
require human intelligence. The tasks are visual perception, speech
recognition, decision-making, reasoning and translation between languages. It
is accomplished by studying how human brain works and then using the outcomes
as a basis for developing intelligent software systems.
AI has
become a buzzword in the world of science, technology and Industry today. It is
already there in our computers, mobile phones and other devices when we are
online. The applications based on AI are already visible in industries, in
health, education, transportation, entertainment and has the potential to be a
new engine for economic growth. A simple example of AI is the thermostat that
controls the temperature of devices automatically. AI adds intelligence to the
products much like the Google Assistant was added as a feature to a new
generation of mobile phones. The Voice Assistants such as Alexa, Siri, Amazon,
Apple etc are much more than convenient tools and they use speech recognition
software to answer your questions. AI has made it possible for machines to
learn from experience and perform human-like tasks. It is impacting e-mail
filtering, fraud detection where softwares are used to detect strange activity
on your account. Robots are taking over human jobs like hotel waiters;
policemen etc, traffic is managed automatically, doctors are performing
tele-robotic surgeries. The self-driving cars do not require any human effort,
move safely at high speeds. These are all real applications of AI that is
increasingly becoming integral part of our lives. The ultimate luxury would be
an Assistant who waits for your calls and demands, anticipates your needs and
takes action when necessary. That luxury is now available, thanks to AI.
Human brain
is the most powerful super computer in the world. It has been the main source
of inspiration for AI. To go further with AI we need to know more about human
brain and take inspiration from the nature as well. Neural networks, deep
learning and machine learning concepts are big topics in Computer Science.
Neural Network is a biological representation of neurons in the brain and it
deals with all the connections and chemical reactions in the brain. A typical
brain contains hundreds of billions of neurons interconnected in a complex way,
the equivalent in a computer are the billion transistors on a chip connected in
a simple way. The Artificial Neural Network is one of the machine learning
algorithms which has proved useful for studying the brain. While machine
learning uses algorithms to parse data, learn from that data to make decisions,
the deep learning is a subset of machine learning that configures computers to
learn from deep layers of large amounts of data and perform tasks through
experience. Deep learning is a key concept to perform classification tasks
directly from images, text or sound and the main technology behind driverless
cars etc. As the algorithms are growing increasingly sophisticated in
simulating the human intelligence making AI a rapidly developing field and as it
is progressing and getting more in our lives, there would be super-intelligent
machines in the market controlling everything around.
The experts
are predicting the term “technological singularity”-a hypothetical point which
refers that AI smarter than humans will be created in the future that will
solve every kind of human problem. The intelligence will be able to figure out
genetic engineering, solve every problem of disease whereby humans would be
able to live much longer. If the intelligence has the ability to improve
itself, the humans would lose the autonomy. This has been worrying for many
experts who also believe that
singularity could come about in the middle of the present century which may
result in unforeseeable changes to the human civilization. However, many
scientists also believe that machines are good at pattern matching and the
humans have the ability to learn unlimited patterns honed by millions of years
of their evolution, they would learn how to harness computing to augment their
own native capabilities and thus will always be smarter than AI. The situation
thus presents both an existential opportunity as well as existential threat for
humanity to transcend its limitations and we need to imagine both
possibilities. Whether the AI is rising on a wave of hype, the robots can
control a society or act as witness or as a tool for committing various crimes,
the technology is bound to have unmanageable implications. As we move forward,
we have to make it sure that its impact is positive, the countries including
India need to be legally prepared to regulate this disruptive technology.
https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/opinion/can-artificial-intelligence-outsmart-humans/
-----
URL: https://newageislam.com/indian-press/indian-press-love-jihad,-constitution/d/123588
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic
Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism