Shariah-Controlled Zone in A Bengal Village That Tops Illiteracy and Unemployment List
By S.
Arshad, New Age Islam
20 August
2020
The village
heads of a Muslim dominated village in Murshidabad district in West Bengal have
issued a Fatwa banning lottery, listening music and watching films on mobile
and TV, selling and consuming liquor, playing carrom and gambling. They have
also put penalty of RS 500 to RS 7000 depending on the severity of the 'crime'.
Apart from the penalty, the offenders will also be paraded around the village
with shaved heads. To ensure better enforcement of the Fatwa, they have also
announced reward for persons informing the Social Reform Committee about the
offenders. This initiative has been taken under the banner of the Social Reform
Committee of the village headed by one Azharul Shaikh. The Fatwa has been supported
by the head of the TMC- led panchayat who is a Muslim.
According
to the Secretary, Azharul Shaikh, the Fatwa was issued to save the Muslim youth
from moral degradation.
The village
called Advaitpur is dominated by Muslims. The problems that the Social Reforms
Committee saw in that village is not an exception to that village alone.
Unemployed youth play carrom to pass the time or purchase lottery tickets to
try their luck. The youth spend most of their time on mobile phones listening
to music or watching films on the TV. Sale and consumption of liquor is also a
common problem of the society and the government has formed laws to deal with
it. But issuing Fatwa in the name of social reforms only reflects the
immaturity of the guardians and elders of the village. No non-governmental body
can take law in its own hands and punish citizens according to their own laws.
The committee has also decided to make the offenders to do sit-ups while
holding their ears and shaving their heads and parading them around the
village. This shows their Talibani mentality and the lack of the knowledge of
Islamic principles of punishment.
In fact,
the members of the Social Reform Committee and the village Pradhan seem to be
uneducated and religious zealots. They seem to be unaware of the social and
economic realities of their own community of the district. Murshidabad district
is a Muslim majority district and has been mentioned in the Sachar Committee
Report as one of the most economically and educationally backward Muslim majority
districts of the country. The Muslim population in the district is 67 per cent.
The literacy rate among the Muslims is 65 per cent while the literacy rate
among Hindus of the district in the district is average 75 per cent. Only 43
percent of Muslim children of the district enrol in primary schools and only 3
per cent of them complete higher secondary education. Only 2 per cent of the
Muslims of the district are graduate. There are not sufficient number of
primary schools within easy reach and there are a few institutions of higher
education. After Sachar Committee recommendations, the then Congress government
had decided to open a branch of Aligarh Muslim University in Murshidabad but
this move had been opposed by the Bengali intelligentsia of the state as well
as some communal and so-called secular parties. The branch has been running
there but it is facing many problems.
Since the
district is Muslim dominated the successive governments ignored it leaving the
Muslim population educationally and economically backward. No major industries
have been set up here so that Muslims could have benefitted. Since employment
opportunities are dismal, Muslims of the districts take less interest in
studies and parents are forced to send children to work as labourers.
In this
scenario, the Fatwa issued by the so-called Social Reform Committee becomes
questionable. First, they cannot run a parallel police system of their own.
Second, if they are concerned about the social reform of their community, they
should know that social reform is not brought about by wielding lashes or by
parading people with shaved head. The holy Prophet Pbuh toiled hard to bring
social reforms among the people of his area for eleven years and when the
ordainments against wine was revealed Muslims discarded wine over night without
any use of force. The youth who are unemployed pass their free time playing
carrom which is not an un-Islamic act though Islam discourages such an
unproductive pastime and
for which the law of the land does not prescribe any punishment. How can then
the village committee punish them? The village committee has banned watching TV
while our Ulema use TV and YouTube for preaching their views and ideas. In
fact, the village committee members are ignoramuses ignorant about the indispensability
of the modern means of communication.
The
representatives of Muslims like Azharul Shaikh need to think ways to bring
about educational and economic reforms among the community. Instead of forcing
the youth not to play carrom and purchase lottery tickets, they should work
with the government to open more and more schools for their community in the
district and pressurise the government to set up more industries in their area.
Moreover, they should run campaigns for greater enrolment of children
especially girls in primary schools. They should work towards bringing about
all round development of the Muslim community.
Issuing
Talibani fatwas devoid of any religious justification will only give leverage
to communal groups against Muslims and will not yield any positive results.
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