Lives of Muslims in India by Abdul Shaban

Author:Abdul Shaban [Shaban, Abdul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780815392972
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2018-01-10T08:00:00+00:00

The Impact of Islamist Political Ideology

The political Islamists aim to establish an Islamic state and enforce Islam as understood by one sect or another. They go significantly further than the moderates, who are content using symbols to mobilise Muslims. Islamists use the state to enforce compliance with Islamic cultural norms and desire to see Muslim society homogenised in the face of diversity of culture within Muslim society. They not only encourage Muslims to learn Urdu but also, without much success, discourage other languages. The idea is that Muslims should have not only a common religious identity but also a common culture. In this, they demonstrate similarities to right-wing Hindu parties, with emphasis on a common and homogenous culture and the blunting of local regional identities. The idea is that a culturally unified and homogenised Muslim community will be stronger and better equipped to fight the onslaught of Hindu extremism.

Maulana Abu Ala Maududi founded the Jamat-e-Islami (JI) in 1941. Maududi argued that it was the duty of every Muslim to fight to establish an Islamic state in India. Initially, JI opposed the demand for Pakistan even though its JI objective was to fight for an Islamic state within the country. As soon as Pakistan was created, Maududi moved to Pakistan and established the JI and a branch continued its activities on the Indian side of the border. In India, the JI laid low for some time after Independence and did not have much of a following, concentrating instead on building its cadre by training students. The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was its front organisation through which it reached out to the students and recruited its cadre. It emphasised character-building of young Muslims and provided ideological training to a select few.

During the 1980s, when there was a series of communal riots throughout India, and with militancy rising in Jammu and Kashmir, the stance of some SIMI leaders hardened, and they adopted violence as a means to achieve the objective of establishing a unified Muslim community. SIMI split when those opposing violence left the organisation and formed the Students Islamic Organisation. The rise in the level of violence against ordinary Muslims in society was a catalyst for the radicalisation of a section of the Muslim youth. SIMI, after its radicalisation in the post-Babri Masjid demolition period, existed only in few urban and semi-urban pockets with significant Muslim population. A few score educated youth were attracted to SIMI due to increasing structural and physical violence, discrimination, communal profiling by intelligence agencies and marginalisation of the community on the one hand and desire for revenge for targeting the community, indoctrination and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) support on the other hand. SIMI activists put provocative posters in Kanpur in March 2001 praying Allah to send one more Saladin — the crusader Sultan (to fight the present day enemies of Islam). The poster campaign was to protest the burning of Quran in Delhi on 9 March 2001. SIMI also organised a small march in Kanpur to protest burning of Quran.

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