Why opposing fundamentalists has to be a collective effort

Rahul Singh

Two persons have been in the news lately, both connected to films: actor Naseeruddin Shah and lyricist Javed Akhtar. I don’t know them personally, except that I once played tennis with Naseer and interviewed Javed for a daily. But that was many years ago. They are both in the news because of two closely linked events: the 20th anniversary of the infamous terrorist attack on the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, and the recent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban. These two events have thrown a harsh spotlight on the Muslim community.

How have they reacted? That is the question that I shall pose while discussing religious fundamentalism in other faiths as well.

The New York terrorist attack, widely known as 9/11, shocked the entire world and was condemned by all, except for some Muslim fanatics spewing venom on USA. The tyrannical rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, characterised by the oppression of women — girls were banned from going to school and women from working — and the practice of what can only be called a barbaric interpretation of the Sharia law, darkened the already unflattering image of Muslims.

Their demonisation is bound to increase with the recent and sudden withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan, and the Taliban triumph. The present Taliban say they will be very different from the old Taliban. However, there is little to support this. On the contrary, the earlier anti-women stance continues. When a Taliban spokesman was asked about the future role of women in his country, his reply was, “To give birth!”

Yet, two prominent members of the high-sounding All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), its secretary Maulana Umrain Mahfuz Rahmani, and its national spokesperson Maulana Sajjad Nomani came out publicly in support of the Afghan Taliban, praising the outfit, and describing their victory as a “heavenly decision”.

The AIMPLB distanced itself from what these two Muslim worthies had to say about the Taliban, but the question needs to be asked, why did it not remove them from the high positions they hold, or at least condemn them, and thereby force them to resign? Do these two truly believe that the only role of women is “to give birth” and that women should not take part in any sport?

Which takes me back to what Naseer and Javed had to say. Naseer labelled the Taliban as “barbaric”, rejecting their interpretation of Sharia, saying it was a distortion of the teaching of Islam. He called the Taliban “thekedars” of religion, an apt description. Islam needed to be reformed, he added, but the die-hard Islamists have repeatedly declared that there can never be any reform to a religion that is perfect.

Javed went a step further and compared the Taliban to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and the Bajrang Dal. Just as the Taliban want an Islamic state, he says the RSS wants a “Hindu Rashtra”. To me, that is simply stating the reality. But it was a red rag to the BJP bull, which turned on him with fury. Javed softened his stand by writing in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, ‘Saamna’, that Hinduism was the most “decent” and “tolerant majority” religion in the world.

I have juxtaposed the miserably-performing AIMPLB with what Naseer and Javed have said. But why have some other well-known and respected Muslim bigwigs been so silent? The likes of Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan have all had inter-faith marriages and have courageously stuck their necks out earlier when it mattered. Why not now? Asaduddin Owaisi, a four-time Lok Sabha MP with considerable credibility among Muslims, also needs to come out more forcefully against fundamentalist groups like the Taliban. As does the Syedna, the spiritual leader of the progressive Indian Bohras. They, too, follow the Sharia law, but their interpretation of it does not stone women found guilty of adultery to death.

Virtually every faith has its loony fundamentalist fringe. Islamic fundamentalism has hogged the news lately. But Hindu fundamentalism is not very far behind, with senior ministers calling Muslims “termites” and “traitors” who should be shot, not to mention cow vigilantes out to lynch those they suspect of transporting cattle illegally.

Sikh fundamentalism had also reared its ugly head earlier, with Bhindranwale and the Khalistan movement. Even Christianity has its fundamentalists. In 1925, a landmark ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’, as it was called, took place in which a three-time US presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, argued against the Darwinian theory of evolution, as he felt it went against the teachings of the Bible. He lost.

The extreme form of fundamentalism climaxed with perhaps the worst crime against humanity of our times, the ‘Holocaust’, during which six million Jews were killed by the Nazis, while the other ‘Christian’ nations did nothing.

But the truth of the matter is that in no country have the fundamentalists been in a majority. They have invariably been on the fringes. Most people, even in Taliban-run Afghanistan, are basically decent and peace-loving, though afraid to speak out against their oppressors. But speak out they must, as the women protesters did the other day in Afghanistan, at risk to their lives. It is not good enough for non-Muslims to criticise the excesses of some Muslim fundamentalists. The criticism and the opposition must come from within. That is what really hurts the fundamentalists.

— The writer is a veteran journalist