DrNafeesLaw //BrotherhoodInternational.org/

Legal battle over transiting the Strait of Hormuz | The Japan Times Online

2012-01-08T23:59:00.000-08:00

Legal battle over transiting the Strait of Hormuz | The Japan Times Online

RIGHTS OF MINORITIES: MAPPING A MIRAGE

2011-11-14T09:39:00.000-08:00

RIGHTS OF MINORITIES: MAPPING A MIRAGE
BY

DR. NAFEES AHMAD*

1. AN EXORDIUM

The hurricanes of human hierarchy are rooted in the classic, dualistic, elitic and feudalistic megrims of social animals called humans. The frontiers of fraternity catapulted into frenzy, individual inferno morphed into groups’ grief and simmering volcano of disparity, ultimately, bestowed upon India Communalism and Terrorism which is pervading every nook and corner of the country at a pace never witnessed before. The so-called theology of Appeasement of Muslims accords primacy to the plausibility of violence against Muslims as a medium of securing to their marginalization. On the other hand, the equity, equality and parity wedded to human rights and human dignity and the ideology of terrorism are no different from the former except its being a global phenomenon. Consequently, India has become an ivory tower of iniquitous social orders whereat minorities are mauled, Dalits are deprived, tribals are trivialized and society is stratified and Muslims in particular are subjected to subordination of the majority community embracing an unwritten policy of ensuring their exclusion, alienation and demonization only on the ground of being a member of a particular social group or social origin or minority or religion or race or caste or political opinion and so on so forth. Although, there is no constitutional recognition of the fact which many would regard as essential for a democracy that the powers of the state are originally the collective powers of the people which the state merely exercise on their behalf.

The Constitutional construction of constitutionalism on rights of minorities instill a sense of pride among the minorities of the country but constitutionalization of the same is subjected to prejudices in every layer of state set-up, administrative apparatus and political paraphernalia of the country. The non-discrimination of oriental and occidental orientations whereunder heterodoxy and hermeneutics of Lego-institutional, geo-political and socio-economic perspectives and propositions are envisioned is conspicuous by its absence in the functioning of the Indian state which could have been crafted towards the ontology of rights of minorities and semantics of human rights. The minority jurisprudence is a perennial pursuit for equality with equity, liberty with liberalism and fraternity with diversity for, We, the Muslims of India beyond the horizontal and vertical limitations of Constitutional Diaspora that is reflected in the conflation, cosmology and schematization of Articles 25 to 30 on the thematics of affirmative action and state responsibility including economics of minority rights under the tempest of human rights, Dalit jurisprudence and transcendental institutionalism an idea that is evolved by Nobel Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen in his treatise Idea of Justice.

The moral authority and practical efficacy of human rights are adversely affected by a range of myths and miasma of misunderstandings-from claims regarding the moral status of human rights of minorities as a fully comprehensive moral doctrine to the view that the possession of rights is antithetical to recognizing the importance of moral duties. The claim made by some that rights of minorities ultimately only exists as legal phenomena and that nation-states are inherently hostile to the spirit of human rights. The understanding of minorities’ rights in a land of human hierarchy and asymmetrical intersections like India is being subjected to distortions of high order. The paradigms and praxis of rights of minorities on a comparative conceptualization and jurisprudential premise should have been a perennial primacy of the state instrumentalities in conformity with the preambular propositions of the Constitution of India. Therefore, the rights of minorities make accountable state and non-state actors, corporate houses, MNCs, and civil society institutions to the Constitutional constructions of equality for all and justice for all which are of indelible impact and might shape the geography of legislative business in a land of hierarchy like India for the present and for the posterity. The rights of minorities are a challenge to the political class of the country to reconsider their understanding of critical analysis of enduring issues pertaining to the largest minority in the classical and contemporary reality of human rights of minorities.

2. DEFINITIONAL DILEMMA

It is often assumed that minority rights belong to the field of human rights but the relation between the two kinds of rights are complex and polemical. The United Nations, in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, deliberately decided to leave out minority rights. The League of Nations had had a minority-rights regime, but this was thought to have failed, and the concept of minority rights was believed to have been exploited by Nazi Germany as an excuse for aggression. The Universal Declaration is based on the assumption that individual human rights, including the prohibition of discrimination and the right to practice one’s culture, are sufficient to protect cultural minorities. The UN did recognize that there might be a special problem of minorities in setting up its sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

The most important provision of international law relating to minority is Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 which provides that, in those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, “persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language”. This goes beyond the Universal Declaration, but contains several problems;

1. It applies only to those states in which minorities exist, thereby encouraging states to deny that minorities exist in their jurisdictions;
2. It recognizes the rights of persons belonging to minorities, not of minorities as such;
3. It imposes on states only duties of non-interference with the rights of such persons, but no duties to assist them.

The reluctance of states to take minority rights seriously has been attributed to the following factors:
1. It would encourage outside interference,
2. Minority problems are diverse and it is doubtful that there are universal solutions.
3. Minority rights threaten the cohesion of states,
4. Rights for minorities would discriminate against majorities

Nevertheless the UN adopted in 1992, a Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. The title of declaration follows Article 27 in assigning rights to persons not to minority groups. However, Article 1 of the declaration provides that states “shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and the linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories, and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity”. Thus, although the declaration does not recognize minority group rights, it goes further than Article 27 in imposing on states the obligation to take positive measures to protect minority identities.

The word”minority” has not been defined in the Constitution of India. The Motilal Nehru Report, 1928 showed a prominent desire to afford protection to minorities but did not define the expression. The Sapru Report in 1945 also proposed inter-alia a Minorities Commission but again did not define who is a minority? The U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities has defined ‘minority’ by an inclusive definition as under:

1. The term ‘minority’ includes only those non-document groups in a population which possess and wish to preserve stable ethnic, religious or linguistic traditions or characteristics markedly different from those of the rest of the
Population;

2. Such minorities should properly include a number of persons sufficient by themselves to preserve such traditions or characteristics; and

3. Such minorities must be loyal to the State of which they are nationals

Although the word “minorities occurs in the marginal note to Article 29, it does not occur in the text.” The original proposal of the advisory committee in the constituent assembly recommended that the “Minorities in every unit shall be protected in respect of their language, Script and culture and no laws or regulations may be enacted that may operate oppressively or prejudicially in this respect”. It means ‘a minority is a non-dominant group in a relative terminology that represents the smaller of two numbers, sections or group called ‘majority’. In that sense there may be political minority, religious minority, and linguistic minority as propounded in T.M.A. Pai Foundation V. State of Karnataka

3. CONCLUSION

The word “Minority” must be defined by the Parliament while amending by way of an insertion into Article 29 of the Constitution of India to end conflicting decisions of the judicial branch of the State. The 10% reservation of Muslims of India must also be ensured in the services under the Union of India and in all States irrespective of any impediment in the name of religion, caste, language, and region or otherwise. The Rights of Muslim to equal opportunities and equal access to all natural and national resources deviant to any prejudices, predilections or preposterous argument must be made available under the rigours of law of the land. The Muslims reservation proportionate to their population must be made in the Parliament and State legislative bodies by incorporating Muslim Dominated Areas through fresh delimitation of constituencies. The proportionate to the population the representation of the Muslims in the armed forces under the Union of India must also be ensured by suitably amending the existing law or bringing in a new legislation thereto in the Parliament or otherwise. The proportionate to the population the representation of the Muslims in the Police Force under the various States must also be made available to curb the menace of communal riots, regional riots, linguistic riots and caste riots.

The establishment of more minority educational institutions in the Country be encouraged and promoted. The Right not to be Poor, Right to be Consulted and Right of Participation in the “Inclusive Economic Growth Model” of Development in every walk of life must also be ensured without any discrimination whatsoever. The shibboleth “Unity with Diversity” must be promoted instead of Unity in Diversity. The in the 33% reservation of Women in legislative bodies separate reservation for Muslim Women must also be made that seeks to provide better education, health, hygiene, housing and skills to the Muslim Women. The the working of existing Madarsas must not be disturbed and they should be allowed to continue in imparting religious education without any State interference or otherwise. The Leadership building among the Muslims must be made the part of affirmative action through a system of incentives, enterprises and to ensure diversity at the work places public and private sectors must come together. The Local Bodies and Panchayati Raj Institutions must be utilized to reflect the inclusive growth and human development in India. The ideological indoctrination against Muslims by private and public undertakings, entities, institutions and organizations must be made a criminal offence of non-bailable and cognizable character. The status of Muslim places of worship must be maintained as of 1947 status. Moreover, heritage buildings and historical monuments associated with the Muslims must also be preserved, protected and promoted by the Union of India in real terms at the ground level.

*Author is Assistant Professor teaches Comparative Constitutional Law at South Asian University in New Delhi.

Judicial Reforms: Count down Must Bigin Now

2010-01-18T08:05:00.000-08:00

Judicial reforms has come to dominate the obtuse obssesions of political pomtiffs of Indian...

ISLAM IN THE AGE OF GLOBAL CHALLENGES: ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES OF THE GULEN MOVEMENT IN SOUTH ASIA (Towards Human Rights & Social Ontology)

2009-07-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

ISLAM IN THE AGE OF GLOBAL CHALLENGES: ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES OF THE GULEN MOVEMENT IN SOUTH ASIA
(Towards Human Rights & Social Ontology)
By
Dr. Nafees Ahmad*
“Fethullah Gulen is a man with God is always in the majority”

The collapse of the Ottoman caliphate was a watershed dividing the classical and modern phases of Islam. Since then the Turkish world has been wrenched away from its Islamic heritage in pursuit of a modernity that is perceived to be secular, scientific and atheistic. As is well-known the Turkish establishment has prosecuted, banned and suppressed the Islamic aspirations of the Turkish people in the name of the secular ideals of the Turkish Republic. It is in this context and within these parameters that the religious thoughts of Fethullah Gulen have taken shape over the last few decades. In contemporary Islam, as in all religions, there is a spectrum of movements ranging from militant fundamentalist to ultra-liberal modernist. The Gulen Movement is ranked as modestly Liberal with an emphasis on the devotional rather than the social and political aspects of Islam. Therefore, it is a healthy development. Many reform movements in today’s Islam advocate nothing less than wholesale appeasement to modern decadence. The Gulen Movement, on the other hand, is motivated by a pragmatic assessment of modern conditions and a proportionate and intelligent response to the modern impasse. Similarly, on sensitive issues such as the veiling (hijab) of women Gulen expounds that while such matters are symbolically potent, in broader sweep of Islam they are details, not essentials. His reading of the Holy Quran also seeks to develop a wholesale sense of proportion. There is always an on-going “negotiation” between reader and Writ, he says or else the text falls dead. There is an shakable core –the unity of God—but peripheral matters are subject to renewed interpretation by every generation. This is what keeps the text and the religious spirit alive, animated and kicking and prevents its ossification.

Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men.1 The degree of a Nation’s civilization is marked by its disregard for the necessities of existence2. Therefore, Indian civilization includes Muslims too because civilization goes beyond the regimes of religion and one of the unpardonable sins in the eyes of civilization is to leave any segment thereof deprived, demonized and dehumanized. No demonization is deviant to divinity on this planet can sustain without being claimed by every adherent of every religion. Muslims are not a herd of animals whom we compassion; they are also the creatures of emotions, equality, dignity, needs and wants etc. If the concept of religion has any sanctity, validity and certainty or relevance it can only make us larger, freer and more loving. If religion can not do this, let’s get rid of it. Epistemologically speaking, Muslims and globalization go together in terms of their visibility and divinity but in terms of sociology of economics they are supremely suffering from the sense of alienation and are subjected to economic extravasations, obtuse opportunities and gawky globalization at national and supranational levels.

The theology of globalization is being executed in such a fashion which has, unfortunately, decorticated, denuded and desquamated the Muslims and got them brawled in a state of terra-incognita wherein economic evolution, political participation and cozy co-existence among the comity of nation-states has, rightly, become the priority of the Gulen Movement in a Unipolar World Order. However, Muslims are morphed into challenges for others in South-Asia and elsewhere as perennial parasites, contumate communities and existential atrophy. On the other hand, they are riding on the ebbs and tides of deprivation, dehumanization and demonization crowned with xenophobia in every geo-political entity across the globe devoid of equality, liberty and fraternity sanctified by the desideratum of human rights and celestially ordained in the Holy Quran. Therefore, these challenges should be churned into advantages, offers and opportunities by the Muslims themselves in tandem with the mandate of Gulen Movement through the gospel of globalization as it has basically originated from devine delineations and have been expounded in the Holy Quranic injunctions and further re-affirmed, reiterated and re-oriented by the Gulen Movement which has made entire process congruent to the gestation of globalization and ecclesiastical edifices.

Gulen inspires and influences Muslims worldwide including India and South-Asia and his orientations are more important than ever before. No doubt many of these pleasing features of Gulden’s thought come from roots in the Turkish traditions. Ataturk had outlawed the Sufi brotherhood in Turkey but non amount of repression could remove the mystical spirit from the Turkish soul and it is from this that Gulen has drawn much of his inspiration. Unlike most “liberal Islam” the Gulen Movement preserves some real spiritual depth and a genuine piety. This is the hallmark of the educational institutions the movement has sponsored whereat with modern curriculum teachers promulgate Islam through example rather than direct indoctrination. The dominant “flavor” of modern Islam has been Arabic. The disintegration of Ottoman Empire re-empowered the Arabs who again took possession of the Holy Places in Mecca and Medina But neo-Arabic Islam has been dominated by the narrow backward-looking perspectives of the Wahhabis and has failed to find an effective engagement with and response to the conditions of modernity .In some measure, Islam has been retarded by this . Worst of all, Wahhabis dominance has done nothing to revitalize the esoteric core of Islam. The religion has tended towards an empty externalism of ritual obedience. The Khilafat Movement of Turkey was also fully supported in India by M.K.Gandhiji—Father of Nation—during freedom struggle of India. Gulen, of late, has really made indelible imprints upon whole of the South-Asia. Since time immemorial India too has been a land of Sufism (Mysticism) inspired by the Turkish traditions evolved out of Holy Quranic hermeneutics and teachings of Fethullah Gulen. Although, there have been peculiar paradoxes around Gulen Movement attributed by its detractors but Gulen Movement emerged neat and clean at every stage of its evolution. Similarly, Sufism was also castigated but it has become a way of life in and around India since India is a faith-based society. Moreover, Fethullah Gulen can be juxtaposed with Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar (a Mughal Emperor) whose teachings of Din-E-Ilahi are still relevant in India. But Gulen Movement and Gulenites are most scientific, rationale and contemporary in commensurate with Holy Quranic injunctions. Today it is the Gulen Movement which has become the bedrock of human values, inter-faith dialogue, human rights, social justice, affirmative action and multi-party democracy and India has been pursuing the same agenda with minor aberrations. The Gulen has been accepted in other faiths also and has become a bridge for reconciliation, tolerance and peace.
The Gulen Movement is a welcome challenge to this “flavor” and it can only be healthy for Islam to have revival of the distinctively Turkish spirit with its emphasis on social pragmatism and mystical piety. Among modern movements Gulen’s offers much. Gulen seems to understand that the best aspects of tradition need to be preserved by the compensations that surely follow the religious decline of modern times. This is not to suggest that Gulen has all the answers. Contemporary Islam needs more Gulen movements, each searching for ways through the complex and toxic labyrinth of our troubled times.

There can be no question of the depth and sincerity of Gulen’s faith or of his intelligent and humble search for a legitimately modern expression of Islam in the Turkish context as well as in the context of rest of the world. The kernel of the Gulen Movement is to make the optimum utilization of the dichotomies, deviations and dimensions inherent in the Marxian and Weberian orientations practiced by the Christian world et al as these are the offshoots of Islam sans Arab and Turkish Islam divide. Today, Gulen Movement and its presence in the US—a land of liberty, equality and free speech—is testimony of its belief in democracy, human rights and secularism. This paper tries to capture some of the essential insights, innovations, impacts and inquisitions that inform the debates and discourses occupying the centre stage ever since the inception of the Gulen Movement and influence thereof in different geo-political settings as an amalgamation of Islamic teachings and modern western secular values wedded with human rights, equality, social justice, participatory democracy and inter-civilizational dialogue and how to convert these paradigms and principles into resources for Islam and its adherents in age of global challenges.

ISLAM IN THE AGE OF GLOBAL CHALLENGES: ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES OF THE GULEN MOVEMENT IN SOUTH ASIA (Towards Human Rights & Social Ontology)

2009-07-16T04:41:00.000-07:00

LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS IN INDIA

2008-11-14T03:08:00.000-08:00

LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS IN INDIA
Professional Ethics: A Paradigmatic Juricraft
BY
DR.NAFEES AHMAD

LL.M.,Ph.D.
SENIOR LECTURER
FACULTY OF LAW
ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY, ALIGARH-202002-INDIA

(ABSTRACT)

Legal education, which is fundamental, rudimentary and sine qua non to the modernizations and progress of any society, has remained a low priority in India. Despite efforts beginning in the late 1960 which promoted a few law faculties within existing universities as well as the establishment of a few five-year national law schools, legal education has lagged behind in playing its role as an instrument of social ordering. As a result, the Indian law schools have paid very little attention to the grand design of law as the organizer and prime mover of modern society. Unless law schools - at least a few of them - focus their research and teaching on all pervasive, ever-changing needs and challenges of the Indian society, especially in the context of globalization, the law in desultory, dystopian and dusty books and the law in real Indian life and elsewhere will exist in alien worlds-and remain the worse for it. In societies where the rule of law is assured, law schools constantly work for the cohesion, coordination, harmony and reconciliation between the law and life of the people, encouraging order and peace essential for progress. India urgently and indisputably needs law academies, schools and institutions working in that direction. The emerging global context has intensified the urgency and the need for such initiative to be an effective vehicle for the creation and successful operation of a rule of law society in India wedded with a confluence of care, compassion and camaraderie beyond the occidental and oriental dichotomies.

It is, indeed, the pedagogical pursuits well-founded upon intellectual inquisitions, harmonious heterodoxy, and paradigmatic praxis in law which still remains ad avizandum at the threshold of perennial papistry, evil episcopacy and scriptural spandule in a World Wide Web of a confluence of equality, liberty and fraternity. The teaching methodology in law of occidental and oriental jurisdictions is at war with eunomy of societal subbatarianism of classical and contemporary concussion even in the twenty first century. Primarily, the language of law is the language of peace and tranquility whereunder the co-ordinates of social order and legal order are reconciled, rejuvenated and regimented to establish rule of law, justice, equity and good conscience. The credo, crasis and crassitude of law and legal labyrinth must be galvanized, geminated and gestated under the jural spectrometry in the class-rooms pandered to experientia docet. The students must enjoy intellectual carte blanche over pedantic panache, practical paradoxes and pragmatic polemics pervading in the realm of law. Moreover, vastitudes and vicissitudes of law must be rummaged and tantalized in an ambience of decency, dignity and decorum at petits soins whereby legal ethics are professionalized among the puisne legal luminaries wedded with a gerenda of economic evolutions, geomantic globalization and polymorphous politics of law.
The cosmology of teaching methodology ex facie must encompass the petitio principii and appreciation of the tensions between empirical and normative sciences and relationship thereof with other social sciences et al by reformulating, recasting and reorienting the sublime structures of national and supranational laws beyond geo-centric, socio-political and cultural cleavages. Therefore, teaching philosophy and methodology regime (TMR) in law transcended all citizenships and netizenships while evolving a desideratum of multi-disciplinary and comparative approaches in an age of post-modernism. Thus, teaching methodology of law is an Operating System which has been installed with the softwares of Deliberations, Discussions, Interactions and Participations with unlimited terabytes for emplacing a World Wide Web of civilizational citadel, egalitarian élan and equalitarian emulation beyond divine dictate, ecclesiastical essence and gospel gratification in and around the class-rooms. I understand and perceive the concept of teaching methodology in law as a concept of individual inquisition, collective caviling and paramount primacy wherein Jurocracy of Juricraft, Jurineering of Jurimatrix and Lexicography of Lawyering is an anvil whereupon juridical proclivities are made, wade and laid and so on so forth and pax vobiscum!

HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN INDIA: AN AGENDUM HENCEFORTH

2008-09-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Education in India: An Agendum Henceforth
By
Dr. Nafees Ahmad*
Aaisha Khan**

Human rights and globalisation go together in terms of their visibility and divinity but in terms of economics these are supremely suffering from the sense of alienation and subjected to economic extravasations, obtuse opportunities and gawky globalisation at national and international level. The theology of globalisation is being executed in such a fashion, which has marginalized the human rights and got them brawled in a state of terra-incognita wherein economic viability, political participation and cozy co-existence among the comity of nation states is not a priority of the so-called moral majority of the unipolar world order. Consequently, human dignity is morphed into challenge for others as perennial parasite, contumate concern and existential atrophy in every geopolitical entity across the globe deviant to equality, liberty and fraternity sanctified by the desideratum of human rights beyond human rights. Therefore, challenges should be churned into opportunities through the gospel of globalisation as it has basically originated from human rights philosophy and has been ordained in the Devine injunctions, which has made entire process congruent to human rights and globalisation. But there are still some pertinent questions, which remain to be answered.
How will future historians regard the history of the twentieth century? It was certainly an age of stark contrast, conflict and contradiction, and possibility of perennial paradox. It is not surprising that it should have been depicted as an “age of extremes”. But how will the twentieth century be remembered? As soon as the question is posed, the contradictions spill out. It was an age of unprecedented violence, of threatened annihilation, and yet, for part of the time, of very substantial peace and stability in some areas of the world and that too deviant to equality, liberty, fraternity and human rights. Although, it was an age that did more than any other to advance the philosophical claims to human rights in an international context, but it also witnessed the most flagrant violations of them in practice. The century saw the creation of hitherto unattainable wealth but ever-wider gaps in its distribution (sic).
Above all, the century was characterized by the greater interconnectedness of events on a global basis while simultaneously being subject to political processes of repression, rupture and disintegration. Thus, it has been a century of globalisation founded upon travesty of justice, pell-mell distribution of natural resources and fragmentation of human rights. Accordingly, a more sensitive and systematic understanding of human rights and impact thereof upon various facets of human existence is imperatively required (sic).
In this gloomy scenario, the need for legal educators to provide adequate and systematic training in human rights law at undergraduate and postgraduate levels has increased significantly. The reasons for this are many such as the provisions of Human Rights in the post 1945 constitutions of many countries including India and the fact that along with several other countries, India is also signatory to the major international human rights instruments.
The importance of understanding of human rights from a national, international and comparative perspective for those involved in the study and practice of law was rightly emphasized by paragraph 9 of the Bangalore Principles:

“It is essential to redress a situation where by reason of traditional legal training which has tended to ignore the international dimension, judges and practicing lawyers are often unaware of the remarkable and comprehensive developments of international human rights norms. For the practical implementation of these views it is desirable to make provision for appropriate courses in universities and colleges, and for lawyers and law enforcement officials; provision in advisory bodies knowledgeable about developments in this field; better dissemination of information to judges, lawyers and law enforcement officials; and meetings for exchanges of relevant information and experiences.”

Thus the national policy on education has laid considerable emphasis on “value education” by highlighting the need to make value education a forceful tool for cultivation of social and moral values. The policy has stated that in our culturally plural society value education should foster universal and eternal norms & values oriented towards the unity and integration of “we, the People of India”. Therefore, the constitutionalism of human rights can only be deciphered, designed and developed by establishing a Centre for human rights law and value education in every educational institution across the country.
In the contemporary India society of unprecedented changes displacing traditional values and ever mounting conflict between tradition and modernity can be reconciled by the human rights discourse through the “internalisation and externalisation of human rights law and value education at all layers of educational strata. Justice J.S. Verma Committee on the Fundamental Duties has rightly emphasized the need of including Fundamental Duties in our study of fundamental rights. The emphasis on duties shall help us in popularising our values. The values of tolerance being the other name of India which stands for pluralism in the right place for such a discourse. A Muslim university can materialize the universality of human rights and its juxtaposition with cultural relativism by reorienting the traditional principles in consonance with modernity in vibrant India.
The human rights law framework creates empowerment through legal tools and institutional intervention help formulate ways to protect he rights of the people. Thus, right-based approaches through Lego-Institutional framework can ensure that governments are constantly evaluated and made accountable to the people and to the international community. Accountability, transparency and good governance have become the core components of a democratic political framework and it can be achieved by adopting a rights-based approach with an agenda of value-education, morals and ethics, which is sustained under the brolly of law and justiciary.
H development of rights-based approaches to human rights law and value education, promotion of ethics and human values add a new and important dimension to the existing studies in human rights discourse which is not alien to India culture and ethos. Law advocates tolerance, cohesion and the promotion of equality among peoples, nations and individuals across the world. It seems disappointing, therefore, that these standards do not apply to the discipline of international human rights law. Moreover, international human rights law has focused primarily on European and Western sources and neglected these from other jurisdictions including India. It has failed to provide and propagate Indian orientation of human rights based on a confluence of multiculturalism, co-existence and diversity with unity.
Ever since the inauguration of the Constitution of India, Dalits disadvantaged and marginalized groups have become more visible, vulnerable and victim of an unwritten policy of social exclusion adopted by the pontiffs of policy in the country. The development agenda of the country does not envisage the inclusion, and allocation of opportunities in the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), construction of big dams and policies of economic liberalization for the Dalits, minorities, marginalized and disadvantaged sections of the Indian sociomatrix rather process of globalisation has globalized and pains and sufferings of these sections of the society devoid of cultural and religious dichotomies.
Reformulating, recasting and re-orienting the vulnerable groups and so on so forth can reconcile the tensions between universality of human rights and cultural relativism. Moreover, human rights are not just abstract ideals. They are expressed concretely in the specific laws of various countries. Therefore, they cannot be understood apart from a country’s laws and institutions. Differences in national laws reflect the different conceptions of human rights but this does not mean the derogation of international human rights norms.
Consequently, the most appropriate forum for efforts to reconcile divergent moral traditions into common public policy is an educational institution i.e. a university which is the market place of ideas and ideas impart vitality to a society. They dynamism and vibrancy of ideas and their steady ascendancy over competing visions of the good life are bedrock of civilizations. A society in intellectual ferment is fertile ground for progress and advancement, provided the clash of ideas is given free play. Conversely, a society that is bereft of, and represses, new ideas is a society doomed to stagnation. Education and scholarship provide the terrain on which intellectually arid and stagnant societies encounter new worlds of ideas from global culture. Therefore, following are the main objectives proposed to be achieved:
- to sensitise the citizens and students so that the norms and values of human rights law and duty education are realized;
- to develop inter-civilizational dialogue and debate;
- to pursue research studies in peace building, gender equality and stability in a nation-state;
- to promote research studies pertaining to the relationship between Human Rights and Duties Education and International Humanitarian Law;
- to create awareness, conviction and commitment to values for improving the quality of life through the teaching of human rights law;
- to provide the democracy of judicial remedies;
- to organize extramural lectures, seminars, conferences, workshops and orientation programmes for teachers, lawyers, judges, social activists, doctors military personnel and policemen etc.
- to envision the sustainable development models with human face and values;
- to prepare and produce thematic books, handbooks, journal; teaching aid materials, video CD and films relating to values;
- to foster and understand multiculturalism, cultural relativism, pluralism and secularism etc.
Hence, Human Right is harmony, symphony, and verdancy of peace, peace and only of peace. The highest advancement of humankind is human right; the biggest achievement of humankind is human right beyond and beneath the universality of human right. Human pains and pleasures do not have any caste, creed, colour or race or gender or demo-geo-political affiliations. It is, indeed, the human sufferings wherefrom emanate idea called the concept of human right.
Human right is a concept of collective care, individual inquisition, and perennial primary for a civilized survival in any society wedded therewith. Of late, there has been witnessed an hiatus between classical care and contemporary concern for this grand concept called “human right”. Primarily, the concept of human right is the language of peace and tranquillity for establishing peace, prosperity and promotion of human values in the transcendental world. The cosmology of human rights encompasses the national and supranational structures beyond parochial perceptions, primordial pursuits and cultural clearages. Thus, human right is an “operating system” which requires the software’s of peace, equality, fraternity and liberty with unlimited gigabytes for creating a World Wide Web of care, concern, compassion and camaraderie beyond divine dictate ecclesiastical essence and gospel gratification.
Human rights and availability thereof to the citizenry determine the norms and standards of the governance institutions in any geopolitical entity. Human rights are the norms of a knowledge constitutionalisation thereof. Percolated therefrom is a welter of welfare pursuant institutionalized accountability, transparency and good governance in a state of democratic liberalism and the same can be reformulated, re-oriented and re-expounded in an academy of higher educations and learning wherefrom it routes to every nook and corner of the world and lays down a roadmap of peace, progress and prosperity for a nation-state.

LL.M., Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Deptt. Of Law, A.M.U., Aligarh-202002
B.Sc., LL.B., Advocate, Hon’ble High Court of Ad judicature at Allahabad, UP,
He is at: nafeestarana@gmail.com

TEACHING METHODOLOGY IN LAW

2008-09-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

TEACHING METHODOLOGY IN LAW:

It is, indeed, the pedagogical pursuits well-founded upon intellectual inquisitions, harmonious heterodoxy, and paradigmatic praxis in law which still remains ad avizandum at the threshold of perennial papistry, evil episcopacy and scriptural spandule in a World Wide Web of a confluence of equality, liberty and fraternity. The teaching methodology in law of occidental and oriental jurisdictions is at war with eunomy of societal subbatarianism of classical and contemporary concussion even in the twenty first century. Primarily, the language of law is the language of peace and tranquility whereunder the co-ordinates of social order and legal order are reconciled, rejuvenated and regimented to establish rule of law, justice, equity and good conscience. The credo, crasis and crassitude of law and legal labyrinth are galvanized, geminated and gestated under the jural spectrometry in my class-room pandered to experientia docet. My students enjoy intellectual carte blanche over pedantic panache, practical paradoxes and pragmatic polemics pervading in the realm of law. Moreover, vastitudes and vicissitudes of law are rummaged and tantalized in an ambience of decency, dignity and decorum at petits soins whereby legal ethics are professionalized among the puisne legal luminaries wedded with a gerenda of economic evolutions, geomantic globalization and polymorphous politics of law.
The cosmology of my teaching methodology ex facie encompasses the petitio principii and appreciation of the tensions between empirical and normative sciences and relationship thereof with other social sciences et al by reformulating, recasting and reorienting the sublime structures of national and supranational laws beyond geo-centric, socio-political and cultural cleavages. Therefore, teaching philosophy and methodology regime (TMR) in law transcended all citizenships and netizenships while evolving a desideratum of multi-disciplinary and comparative approaches in an age of post-modernism. Thus, my teaching methodology of law is an Operating System which has been installed with the softwares of Deliberations, Discussions, Interactions and Participations with unlimited terabytes for emplacing a World Wide Web of care, concern, compassion and camaraderie beyond divine dictate, ecclesiastical essence and gospel gratification in and around the class-room. I understand and perceive the concept of teaching methodology in law as a concept of individual inquisition, collective caviling and paramount primacy wherein Jurocracy of Juricraft, Jurineering of Jurimatrix and Lexicography of Lawyering is an anvil whereupon juridical proclivities are made, wade and laid and so on so forth and pax vobiscum!
Further Elucidation & Explanation of the supra is owned by the undersigned.

DR. NAFEES AHMAD
LL.M., Ph.D. (Int. Law)
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Law,
A.M.U.Aligarh-202002
INDIA
E-mail: nafeestarana@gmail.com

TRIPLE TALAQ: A TRYST WITH TYRANNY

2008-06-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

TRIPLE TALAQ: A TRYST WITH TYRANNY
By

DR NAFEES AHMAD*
AAISHA KHAN**

The utopian union of the husband and wife is a perennial pre-requisite for conjugal covertures. Islam, therefore, insists upon the synovial subsistence of a bridal brolly where under husband and wife are basking. Primarily, no marriage is contract in Islam to be dissolved in future. But in rare-avis situations this celestial celebration may came to an end owing to the mawkish megrims of the spouses, particularly of men, though a divorce may be either by act of husband or by act of the wife.
In pre-Islamic Arab World pertinent power of divorce (Talaq) possessed by the husband was recklessly unlimited. Pronouncements and revocations of Talaq were devoid of any recondite reasons and judicative justifications whatsoever. In post-Islamic Arab World, when Holy Proph1ethood was bestowed upon the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) who looked upon these concupiscent customs of divorce with dissentient disdain and disapproval. Prophet of Islam (PBUH) regarded pervert practice as callously calculated to hamstring the foundation of society. Prophet (PBUH) had to immaculately inculcate Islamic injunctions and teachings in the macabre minds of Arabs who were acquiesced in brutalisation, dehumanisation and subjugation of women from cradle to cremation. They revelled in polygamy and polyandry, and misogyny and polygyny without any submission to the supremacy of the Supreme Being; The Almighty Allah. Prior to Islam a husband could desert his wife at a moment's notice. His repudiation (Talaq) of his wife operated as an instant and final denouement of the conjugal contract. This right of repudiation exercised by the husband stemmed from his exalted position as a purchaser of wife since the institution of slavery and manumission was rampant.
The Holy Quran, of course, virtually suspended the effects of sufferance of severance of matrimony until the expiry of the "waiting period" (Idda) which was to last until the wife had completed three menstrual cycles or in case of her being pregnant, until delivery of the child. This period is, primarily, designed and emplaced to provide an opportunity for reconciliation between the spouses as per the Quranic injunctions, meanwhile wife is entitled to maintenance from the husband. But it should be rememberedthat the Prophet (PBUH) pronounced "Talaq to be the most detestable before God of all permitted things". Thus, divorce being an evil; it must be eschewed as far as possible.
There are Quranic forms of Talaq, which are most compatible with gender justice, medical morality, human honour, and personal parity. Talaq is an Arabic word its literal meaning is "to release" or "taking off any tie or restraint" or "removal of the restrictions of Nikah" and in Islamic jurisprudence it signifies the repudiation of marriage or dissolution of marriage i.e. divorce. There are different modes of Talaq ordained in the Holy Quran. There are two kinds of Talaq sanctified in the Holy Quran and approved by the Holy Prophet (PBUH) One Talaq-ul-Sunnat (revocable divorce) having two forms Talaq-i-Ahsan (Most Proper Divorce) and Talaq-i-Hasan (Proper Divorce). Two is Talaq-ul-Biddat (Innovative Divorce) which is irrevocable and pronounced thrice in one sitting and operates with immediate effect and better known as Triple Talaq.
Tripe Talaq is the most disapproved, detestable, and draconian form of dissolution of Muslim marriage. It was not there during the life time of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). It was a post-prophet innovation of Umayyad Oligarchs in second century of the Hijri era and subsequently approbated by the jurists of Hanafi Law, the most strong and dominant school of Islamic jurisprudence conspicuous on the canvass of Sunni sect of Muslims across the world. Triple Talaq is a tryst with tyranny, which is innovatively impregnated with torture, trauma and tormentation. Triple Talaq is a weapon of victimisation of women in the hands of Muslim men devoid of any ethics, arbitration, and reconciliation. Triple Talaq destroys a woman emotionally, socially and economically. Despite the fact, Islam is the first religion that recognised and legitimised the indivisibility of individuality of a woman. Her personality and personhood is independent and revendicated by the Islamic injunctions as ordained in the Holy Quran. She has been endowed with certain inherent non-derogable human rights. But Triple Talaq symbolises the subordination, subjugation and suppression of human rights of women, which have already been made available to them by the Holy Quran. Moreover, Islam treated rights of women as human rights.
Triple Talaq is a recognised form of divorce in the contemporary legal regime in India or Muslim Law as administered in India. Muslim jurists have perceived it as a novel innovation in Sharia Law. It was not there in the initial two years of the lifetime of the first Caliph Abu Bakr and second Caliph Umar, the great. But, subsequently, Triple Talaq was allowed exclusively in some special circumstances. For example, when Arabs had conquered Egypt, Iraq and Syria etc, they found that women of these countries were more beautiful than those of their own wives. Consequently, they decided to marry with them. But these women of Egypt and Syria insisted upon divorcing their existing wives with immediate effect by pronouncing Talaq and therefore in one sitting so that they could marry with them. Arabs readily accepted this condition because they knew that in Islam Talaq is pronounced twice between the period of purity (Tuhr) and its repetition at the same time is against Islam, therefore, it would be void and ineffective. In this way, they not only could marry with beautiful damsels but also retained their present wives. This nefarious design was brought to the cognisance of Caliph Umar the great. Upon being informed, Caliph Umar, the great for preventing the misuse of religion on this point ruled that if anybody pronouncing Talaq thrice in one sitting would result in irrevocable dissolution of marriage, although it was an administrative measure to meet an emergency and not to institutionalise it as permanent law. But, unfortunately, Hanafi jurists declared this ephemeral arrangement of administrative nature issued by Caliph Umar, the great, as lawful and divorce thereupon valid under the law.
Consequently, this form of Triple Talaq is continued to enjoy spiritual and temporal legitimacy at one hand and judicial recognition on the other hand in India. The jalopy of justice in any democratic dispensation is put on by the highest judicial establishment of the country and it was made possible in India when Supreme Court held scales even on ecclesiastical law in the case of Shamim Ara V. State of U.P (2002) that Holy Quran stipulates Talaq must be pronounced on cogent plausible and reasonable grounds and prior to thereof spouses must appoint two arbitrators and they should make all efforts for reconciliation and resolution. Having failed all efforts, Talaq shall come into effect. Therefore it can be rightly inferred therefrom that the apex court of the land has duly rejected Triple Tyranny of Triple Talaq.
The Islamic raison d'etre has never been to confer an absolute authority of Talaq upon a husband to be misused by him by uttering few words, which signify his intention of divorce. But there should be a subjective element in the intention of husband with regard to divorce thought it is generally not there. Therefore, Talaq-ul-Sunnat is regarded to be the divinely approved form of Talaq. It is called as Talaq-ul-Sunnat because it is based upon the tradition (Sunna) of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Prophet always considered Talaq as an evil. If at all this was to happen, the best formula was one in which there was possibility of reconsideration and revocation of the consequences of this evil. Having cogitated upon, the Prophet recommended only revocable Talaq, whereby the evil repercussion and ramifications of Talaq do not become final at once Talaq-ul-Sunnat is founded upon the bejewelled principles of natural law as it do contemplate the possibility of compromise and reconciliation between conjugal candidates. Only this form of Talaq was in practice during the life of the Prophet. This mode of Talaq is recognised beyond the Shia and Sunna dichotomy. Talaq-ul-Sunnat may be pronounced either in Ahsan or in Hasan form as engrafted in Holy Quran. In the form of Talaq-ul-Ahsan there is a single pronouncement of Talaq during the period of purity (Tuhr- a period between two menstruations) followed by no revocation by husband for three successive period of purity. After this single pronouncement the wife is to observe an Iddat of three monthly courses and during Iddat there should be no revocation of Talaq by the husband but during this period if there is cohabitation, this amount to revocation and reconciliation between husband and wife. However, Talaq-ul-Hasan is also regarded proper and approved form of Talaq and has provision of revocation. But the words of Talaq are to be pronounced three times in the successive periods of purity. It is immensely important to note that the husband may revoke the first and second pronouncements either expressly or by resuming conjugal canopy of cohabitation and consummation and same tantamount to as if no Talaq was made at all. But if third pronouncement in the third period of Tuhr (purity) is made, Talaq becomes irrevocable and marriage is repudiated and the wife observes Iddat.
It is well-established fact that Talaq-ul-Sunnat is the most appropriate, cogent, meaningful, plausible and reasonable mode of repudiation of bridal bond sanctified and warranted by the Holy Quran. Thus, law is the revealed will of Almighty Allah in classical Islamic theory and a divinely ordained system rather than a science of the positive law emanating from judicial tribunals. However, the standards of religious law and the demands of political expediency do not go together and perhaps the arbitrary authority of the political pontiffs influenced the Muslims Ulema to adopt a discretionary divagation of ignoring rather than denying, though Islamic jurisprudence is functional jurisprudence resulting in the Islamic social engineering which has tantalised and galvanised the Sharia law in Egypt, Iraq, Morocco and Pakistan etc. wherein rigid dictates of traditional law and the demands of modern society have been reconciled through Islamic legislation and codification founded upon the Holy Quran and Hadith or Sunnah (Tradition), Ijma (consensus of juristic opinions), customs and usages and juristic deductions like Qiyas (analogy), Istihsan (preference), Istidlal (deductions by logic and reason), Ijtihad (interpretation) and Taqlid (The principle of strict adherence to the law as expounded in the authoritative legal manuals). And on this basis it would appear that Islamic jurisprudence could implement and preserve its fundamental and unique ideal of a way of life based on the command of God (Almighty Allah) in most practical and modernist terms.
But, unfortunately, the recent conglomerate of All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) at Kanpur has stultified the entire agenda of reforms contrary to the expectations of the people of India. But this turned out to be a damp squib. It was expected of AIMPLB would take the most important decision of abolition of Triple Talaq and adopt a model "Nikahnama" (marriage contract) based on equity, justice and gender parity as ordained in the Holy Quran. But it has adopted a policy of procrastination and entire Muslim community put on tenterhooks. This regressive and ridiculous practice of Triple Talaq is nothing but a tryst with tyranny that generated revulsion among the Muslim masses beyond human control in times to come. Therefore, massy reality must be attended at the earliest with dexterity and maturity by the AIMPLB. Moreover, AIMPLB has lost an opportune opportunity of proving its own acceptability and credibility in a democracy because democracy demands decision with accountability and AIMPLB is accountable to the Muslims of India. Although, AIMPLB is an organisation without any legal status but it has been recognised as the body to attend on religious affairs of Muslims who have pinned down their hopes in the collective wisdom of this body. At the same time, AIMPLB is faced with primordial perceptions and parochial pursuits of its members. But it wields considerable weight among the Muslims and has been playing a role since its inception, which is being appreciated by all and sundry.
Therefore, it would be in the fitness of things that AIMPLB must address the issue of Triple Talaq, model Nikahnama, family planning, Codification of Muslim personal law and socio-economic backwardness of Muslims and issues and problems identified by the Sachchar Committee. The codification of Muslim Personal Law must be done as directed by the Holy Quran and Hadith to establish the unity, unanimity and ubiquity in legislative, executive and judicial actions in a secular state like India as enshrined under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India. The issue of Triple Talaq must be resolved in conformity with the Islamic jurisprudence wherein ample scope of reform of Muslim law on this mode of divorce has been provided through ijma and taqlid. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that Triple Talaq does not find any sanction whatsoever anywhere in the Holy Quran. In fact, it is a deviation and distortion of the Holy Quran. Once High Court of Bombay rightly observed, "practice may be good in law" but is "bad in theology". Triple Talaq should not be the wages of marriage. Triple Talaq is the ransom paid by the wife. Marriage is most valuable consideration, which provides the limitation of human action in a civilized society. Aristotle in his "Politics" remarked, "The habit of lightly changing the laws is an evil …..For the law has no power to command obedience except that of habit, which can only be given by time, so that a readiness to change from old to new laws enfeebles the power of the law". So, opinion is of more power than law and laws that do not have public opinion can never be enforced. Therefore, Islamic scholarship must strive to implement the precepts of the divine revelation within the framework of current social conditions.

*LL.M., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, AMU, Aligarh.

** Advocate, High Court Ad judicature at Allahabad-U.P.-India. Available at nafeestarana@gmail.com

REFUGEE-AN ELEGY

2008-06-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

REFUGEE -AN ELEGY**
BY
DR.NAFEES AHMAD*

He is a Refugee, a Refugee and only a Refugee,
O! They crave for against the ebb of ebonite energy.
God! None accords him reticulated reception,
Thou! Always meets even Ecclesiastical rejection.
Who is He? He is a Refugee.

He is Manacled in a mercantile maze of time,
He is Basking in every cosmical coronal clime.
People fumble in Esperanto emblazonry Lamentation,
Hey! God His Qualm is perennial persecution.
Who is He? He is a Refugee.

O! God! He is a victim of Their concussive contumacy,
Alas! We made Him A torvous tool of Draconian diplomacy.
O! People! He is crawling under an Episcopal bondage,
Ye!Know you! He is signifying an easel of prelatic montage.
Who is He? He is a Refugee.

His desultory destination is echopraxic tyranny,
It is His much ado about nothing sterile ordained irony.
A man of straw with no future in laconic lackadaisical sight,
Destiny is supervacaneous sandwiched by mawkish might.
Who is He? He is a Refugee.

O! Ye! Not break a butterfly on a wheel humble humanity,
Doth sit on the fence but pledge Him sacerdotal security.
Ye! God! In the swim Venerate His innocuous innocence,
O! People! Cavil your imbeciled gladiatorial governance
O! Generalissimo! B’coz Nobody wants to be so, And He is made so.

*************************************************************************************
*LL.M. Ph.D. Faculty of Law, A.M.U.Aligarh-202002-INDIA.
Visit ME at<nafeestarana@gmail.com>
**A Trenchant Tribute to the Planet Refugee whereupon nobody wants to be a Refugee.

TERRORISM AND GLOBAL SECURITY ENVIRONMENT

2008-06-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

TERRORISM AND GLOBAL SECURITY ENVIRONMENT

BY
DR.NAFEES AHMAD*

The globalization and its impact on security can no longer be stratified, sectionised and sanctified on the basis of regionalism, nationalism or localism Rather, an analysis of the security environment of a particular area must address the global ramification and repercussions which may have overt or covert impact on the specific area of concern .At the same time, socio-political sagacity has doubled the expectations of the people across the globe and the same has mounted tremendous pressure upon states and the societies. The security scenario after 9/11 has emplaced a new definition of national security which is impregnated with the U.S. orientation and may not be common for all nation –states while posing a dichotomy that in a inter –dependent world security cannot be ensured contrary to the principle of sovereign equality.
The Globalization refers to diverse process embracing political, social, economic, technological and cultural metamorphosis. Globalization encapsulates the ambit of the uniformity of political ideas and practices; the degree of economic integration and the diffusion of technologies. Thus, this system put in place by the United States eventually worked so effectively that it appeared as something which had evolved naturally but it was an illusion of high order, it was a work of political panache and intense interactions deviant to international economic order based on the principles of competitiveness, openness and multilateralism. Consequently this has changed global security environment resulting into rise of terrorism. Terrorism is an act of direct somatic violence committed by the highly indoctrinated, motivated and trained people who are mastered in the theology of death and destruction.

WITHER MUSLIMS: A ROADMAP

2008-06-01T07:25:00.000-07:00

WITHER MUSLIMS? A ROADMAP
BY
DR NAFEES AHMAD*

EXORDIUM

Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men, said Jane Addams (1860-1935) a social worker of US in his speech in Honolulu in 1933. The degree of a Nation’s civilization is marked by its disregard for the necessities of existence, once observed British novelist W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965). These two statements are sufficed to measure the socio-economic and lego-political standing and stature of Indian Muslims in the contemporary world. Indian civilization includes Muslims too because civilization goes beyond the regimes of religion and one of the unpardonable sins in the eyes of civilization is to leave any segment thereof deprived, demonized, dehumanized. No demonization is deviant to divinity on this planet can sustain without being claimed by every adherent of every religion. Muslims are not a herd of animals whom we owe compassion; they are also the creatures of emotions, equality, dignity, needs and wants etc. If the concept of religion has any sanctity, validity and certainty or relevance, it can only be make us larger, freer and more loving. If religion can not do this, let’s get rid of it.
Ever since India becomes ‘We, the People’, Muslims are being marginalized in a fashion that is incomprehensible and beyond the mandate of preambular propositions of the Constitution of India. The Platonian construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class. But Muslims are not enjoying socio-economic happiness at par Hindus. Prior to independence, the questions on the minds of Muslims were that what would be the position of the Muslim community in a free India? Muslims though a minority in its numerical strength but constitutes about 13% of the total population of the country and are distributed all over India in varying numbers. Will it be viable to keep Muslims out of mainstream of the nation? What will happen to united colours of India? What is the reality?
REALITY
Fundamentals, terrorists, anti-nationals, and barbarians and so on so forth are euphemisms Muslims are bestowed upon with owing to a well-orchestrated execution of an ideology, i.e. Tehalka expose of Gujarat genocide of Feb, 2002, which is primordial, parochial and pernicious in its content, current and contour and pervading in every nook and corner of the world. Muslims and their religion, race and entire way of life is ridiculed in the vilest verbosity not only in this part of the world but everywhere. There is a globalization of myths, misconceptions and mockeries against the Muslims founded upon hate, hatred, political opinion, religion, race, membership of a particular political outfit, ideology and Occidentalism incongruent to civilizational co-existence, cultural relativism, political pluralism, multiplicity of ideas and university of human rights beyond being human alone. This devil design is being institutionalized in the most mawkish manner which has left an indelible idée fixe and leaving its scars, stains and stigmas upon the pitched psyche of the Muslims across the spectrum of a socio-political process. Now, the knife has reached the bone and created a frightful situation which must be dismantled at the earliest.
Muslims and globalization go together in terms of their visibility and divinity but in terms of economics they are supremely suffering from the sense of alienation and to economic extravasations, obtuse opportunities and gawky globalization at national and supranational levels. The theology of globalization is being executed in such a fashion which has decorticated, denuded and desquamated the Muslims and got them brawled in a state of terra-incognita wherein economic viability, political participation and cozy co-existence among the comity of nation states is not a priority of the so-called moral majority of the unipolar world order. Consequently, they are morphed into challenges for others as perennial parasites, contumate communities and existential atrophy. On the other hand, Muslims are riding on the ebbs and tides of deprivation, dehumanization and demonization crowned with xenophobia in every geo-political entity across the globe deviant to equality, liberty and fraternity sanctified by the desideratum of human rights. Therefore, these challenges should be churned into opportunities by the Muslims themselves in tandem with the government through the gospel of globalization as it has basically originated from divine delineations and has been propounded in Holy Hindu scriptures as well as ordained in Holy Quranic injunctions which have made entire process congruent to globalization and ecclesiastical edifices.
It is extremely heart-wrenching for the post-independence generation of Muslims to be always subjected to suspicion, anti-nationalism and terrorism and they are in state of constant in terrorem and same has become their destiny and destination. The thrust of the argument is that will we ever be a civilization of people without any human hierarchy? Will there be any agenda which does not have religion and issues connected therewith in Indian politics? Will there be an India free from Hindu-Muslim revanchism or Muslims remain scullions for ever? Any answers of these questions? Even if no answers are there, We, the People of India have to re-prioritize, re-construct and re-draft an inclusive and growth-oriented agenda for the Indian state to make the present century truly an Indian one and collectively ferret out the answers for once and all.
SELF-INTROSPECTION
Muslims have fallen critically behind much of the modern world in intellectual achievement, scientific advancement and educational enrichment. There is a deep knowledge gap segregating the Muslims and the modern India from the process and progress of contemporary gospel of globalization. We are no more keeping pace with the advances of our era. It is, indeed, a gargantuan bid to catch up with modern India and the West that is sure to test the Muslims’ cultural and religious limits. This enterprise is directly at odds with the Muslims’ religious establishment in and around India which severely limits women’s rights, family planning, co-education and robust liberal inquiry as unthinkable. Although, it is Islam which ordained the concepts like gender and spousal equality, economic equality of sexes, family planning, compensatory jurisprudence, divorce (not triple divorce in one sitting) etc. But we are shirking away our responsibility of self-introspection and running away from controversial subjects such as casteism, race, evolution, men and women enter mosques, triple divorce, model Nikahnama acceptable to all sects, codification of Muslim law, modernization of Madarasas (religious seminaries), misuse of Fatwas (religious decrees), polygamy and population policies.
The old-world of values and traditions even seeped deep into our daily life deviant to ordinary prudence. But we are still plonking in the past platitudes of glory and governance while leaving aside the scientific advancement, art and architectural achievements and liberal inquiry of Mughal and Ottoman empires wherefrom originated modern nations like Turkey etc. The Ottoman Empire had a distinction of providing asylum even to jettisoned Jews. Muslims must adopt a proactive and focused approach on these issues along with concerns and conundrums visited by the Sachchar Committee. It is, indeed, the only gleam in gloom to begin with.
WAY AHEAD
It is a well-established reality that India can not maintain its pace of progress while leaving behind its second largest majority i. e. Muslims nor Muslims can afford to be deprived of economic progress and prosperity. Muslims have to be an integral part of this process. But it is distressing to note that Muslims allowed themselves to be pawn in the hands of political pontiffs and parties who mushroomed like parasites and drones in the last two decades of independent India. Moreover, the political class of the country is inventing a cure for which there is no disease and, unfortunately, Muslims are paying the price for it.
It is, primarily, the political democracy which ensures the economic democracy which provides participation in the political process. Muslims must be a part of a responsible, accountable and transparent political outfit because priorities, programmes and policies of a political party must reflect in its actions and initiatives not in individual whims and megrims. We must maintain a democratic distance from those political outfits that have become family fiefdoms and perpetuating an aura of individual cult. The bottom line, as far as Muslims are concerned, is Muslims forms part of the Indian nation and its system in perpetuity and can no more remain mere bystanders. Of course, India is shining but Muslims are in dark therefore this shining may be ephemeral.
Muslims should no more allow themselves to be confined to the issues and matters which are exclusively religious in nature nor they be swayed away by political rabble-rousing speeches and sentimental sabre-rattling at the hustings by the politically parochial and primordial tendencies who are hell bent to create emotional anarchy and solidify the status quo of Muslims in terms of economic status, political participation, educational and literacy level, representation in legislative bodies not proportionate to their population and rate of employment under the state. The forces of neo-liberalism and globalization looming large and becoming deeply entrenched in the planning process, budgetary baptistery and mercantile modalities, the development needs of Muslims are receiving scant attention and this keeps Muslims’ minds snagging. At the same time Muslims should not forget that there are good people in the majority community and they have been fighting for us since independence at different levels in and around the system. Thus, Muslims must rivet upon re-construction of an agenda agglutinatory to their development in every walk of life including matters relating to Muslim Personal and the same must reflect an haute monde precision and exactitude.
Therefore, Muslims must prepare a roadmap for their re-integration and rejuvenation in collaboration with political process and governance institutions for lasting peace, progress and prosperity in resurgent India. We have to create an environment where Muslims can connect to the outside world. Muslims can not work in isolation. Nobody wants to live in a ghetto, even a nice one, let’s make new India wedded with equal opportunity in diversity, affirmative action in human hierarchy and human rights with human dignity. It is the time for the great silent majority of India to stand up and be counted.

*LL.M, PhD, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, A.M.U.Aligarh-202002. Author teaches Human Rights Law & International Legal Studies. Visit him at < nafeestarana@gmail.com>