Muslim intellectuals or RSS proxies? Mir Jafars in sherwani and suit

By Shamsul Islam 

When the people of India — of whom, according to the 2011 Census, approximately 80% are Hindus — reel under unprecedented violence against women, the working class, Dalits, Tribals and minorities, along with price rise, unemployment, corruption, closure of schools, ouster of marginalised Indians from the ambit of higher education and countless paper leaks in the Amrit Kaal (Sanskrit for the era of elixir, or golden period) of RSS-BJP rule, a well-off section of so-called "Muslim intellectuals" who have been part of the ruling elite — unconcerned with this horrendous reality — are busy legitimising the extra-constitutional fountainhead of the Hindutva rulers, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, using Indian Muslims as an alibi.

This was made public by a journalist, Mohammed Wajihuddin, who specialises in Muslim issues, under the title "Mir Taqi Mir of Contemporary India." According to his celebratory report, several former bureaucrats, scholars and activists attended the inaugural meeting of the newly launched initiative Citizens for Fraternity (CFF)-Bharat at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, on June 3, 2024. He wrote: "At the outset, senior journalist Javed M. Ansari, who moderated the show, declared that it was a completely non-political platform and the only purpose of the group was to promote peace, harmony and fraternity through dialogue." The report quoted the following words of the initiative's moving force, Najeeb Jung, retired IAS officer, former Vice-Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia and former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi:

"Despite opposition from within the community, we are going ahead. None of us intends to join any political party and fight elections. We are in pain at the way the two communities are increasingly seeing each other with suspicion."

According to this account, retired IAS officer and former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Qureshi informed the gathering that units of CFF would be opened first in all state capitals and then in districts across the country. Both Jung and Qureshi mentioned their meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat a couple of years ago. According to Qureshi: "We were attacked by our community members for meeting Bhagwat ji. But we believe only dialogue can lead us to a solution. We asked Bhagwat ji how Muslims would be treated in a Hindu Rashtra. He said India cannot be imagined without its Muslim population."

Wajihuddin also recalled that when five prominent Muslims — including Jung, Qureshi, Nai Duniya editor Shahid Siddiqui, Lt. General (retd.) Zameer Uddin Shah and businessman Saeed Sherwani — met Bhagwat on August 22, 2022 in New Delhi to discuss communal harmony and ease interfaith tensions, they were condemned by a section of the community. "They accused us of having made a deal with the RSS chief. Regardless of the criticism, we continue to believe in dialogue," he wrote.

Sharing further details, Wajihuddin wrote that before IGNCA president and senior journalist-scholar Dr. Ram Bahadur Rai made his presidential remarks, former bureaucrat Inderjit Khanna, former diplomat Ashok Sharma, former Vice-Chancellor of South Asian University Dr. Kavita A. Sharma and senior RSS functionary Ram Lal also spoke, reiterating the need to end the toxicity that has crept into our public environment. Ram Lal, who eloquently advocated establishing contacts, removing misunderstandings and creating bonds among community leaders, was asked many questions. He quipped: "The main organiser is Jung Sahab, but most questions are being directed at me."

Wajihuddin himself joined the deliberation: "As is my wont, I too fired a salvo. I quoted an anecdote. Directing my question to Lal, I said that Indian Muslims have become the Mir Taqi Mir of contemporary times — and thereby hangs a tale. Legend has it that on his deathbed, Mir Mutaqqi, a practising Sufi, summoned his two sons — Mir Taqi Mir (1723–1810), who would become a celebrated poet, and his stepbrother Hassan — and told them that he wanted them to divide between themselves the two things he was leaving behind: some debts to pay back and a collection of 300 books. However, Mir's stepbrother ignored their dying father's directive and grabbed the books, leaving Mir to pay back the debts alone. Indians Muslims are in the situation of Mir Taqi Mir today. They are being asked to pay for the debts of the past. They are being blamed for Partition, for destroying temples, for starting riots. Lal heard me patiently and replied that the situation will improve."

Mohammed Wajihuddin rightly noted that a delegation of five "Muslim intellectuals" — namely former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Qureshi, former senior bureaucrat Najeeb Jung, former AMU Vice-Chancellor and Lt. Gen. (retd.) Zameer U. Shah, politician-cum-journalist Shahid Siddiqui (then of the RLD) and businessman Saeed Sherwani (then of the Samajwadi Party) — met RSS Supremo Mohan Bhagwat at the RSS's palatial Delhi headquarters. The meeting, which took place on August 22, 2022, was kept secret for reasons known only to the participants.

According to these "Muslim intellectuals," the meeting, held in what they described as "a very cordial" atmosphere, continued for 75 minutes, though the time allotted had been only 30. In a post-meeting justification of the parleys, Qureshi stated that their main concern was "the insecurity being increasingly felt by the Muslim community in the wake of recurring incidents of lynching of innocents, calls by Hindutva hotheads for genocide and the marginalisation of the community in almost every sphere." (The Indian Express, September 26, 2022.  See my reponse to the August 22, 2022 meeting of "Muslim intellectuals" with the RSS:

"'Muslim Intellectuals' Outreach to RSS: Why It Is Misguided, The Indian Express, September 27, 2022).

This delegation — consisting of high-ranking former Indian government administrators, a top military commander and two members of Parliament — is expected to be familiar with the protocols of a democratic constitutional polity. The issues they raised fall squarely within the realm of governance. They should have met the Indian Prime Minister or the Home Minister to demand corrective measures. If unsatisfied, they should have approached the President of India and the judiciary. Instead, they chose to approach the RSS top brass, which has no legal sanctity.

They may rightly argue that since the RSS controls the BJP — a fact the RSS does not conceal, as BJP is openly acknowledged to be its political appendage (RSS Hindi publication Parm Vaibhav ke Path Per, 1997), and BJP rulers from the Prime Minister to most cabinet members, BJP Chief Ministers and Governors of States publicly declare themselves to be RSS members — why not approach the source of power directly? Yet this raises a deeply troubling question: did these "Muslim intellectuals" believe they were living under extra-constitutional rule? Surprisingly, the moderator Javed M. Ansari remained blind to this reality and declared that "it was a completely non-political platform."

The model adopted by these "Muslim intellectuals" presents a horrendous precedent for the largest minority in India and for smaller minorities as well. When being persecuted, the implicit advice is: do not rely on the institutions of the democratic-secular Indian polity — instead, go and beg for life and safety from the perpetrators themselves. By the same logic, their counsel to persecuted minorities in Pakistan — Hindus, Christians, Shias and Ahmadiyyas — would presumably be: do not seek protection from the State, but enter into peace pacts with the blood-thirsty extremist gangs.

Another troubling question is how these "Muslim intellectuals" arrived at the conclusion that the RSS represents all Hindus of India. Have they lost faith in the common Hindus of India who do not support the RSS and remain faithful to the democratic-secular polity? Did it not occur to them that in the recently concluded West Bengal assembly elections, despite the RSS-BJP turning the contest into a Hindu-versus-Muslim polarisation exercise and the disenfranchisement of millions of voters — courtesy a spineless Election Commission and a supine higher judiciary — the BJP could secure only 46.4% of the polled votes? And under what authority does this group of "Muslim intellectuals" present itself as representative of Indian Muslims?

"Muslim intellectuals" wishing to open a hotline with the de facto ruler of India — the RSS — should have done their homework on cow slaughter before the meeting. The most important ideologue of the RSS, M.S. Golwalkar, claimed in 1966 (RSS publication Spotlight) that cow slaughter began with the arrival of Muslims, who wanted to "stamp out every vestige of self-respect in Hindus." This claim is not even corroborated by Swami Vivekananda, who stated on February 2, 1900: "You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef." The portrayal of beef slaughter as a Muslim crime is a creation of RSS hate propaganda. Large numbers of Dalits and Christians also consume beef. These "Muslim intellectuals" should have pointed out to Mohan Bhagwat that RSS-BJP governments in Goa, Karnataka and all North-eastern States permit cow slaughter. Why, then, are only Muslims and Dalits being punished?

RSS organisations have been at the forefront of spreading the canard that Muslims will outnumber Hindus in India within a few decades. The "Muslim intellectuals" should have shared with Mohan Bhagwat that despite a thousand years of allegedly repressive Muslim rule — as the RSS claims — the first census of India, conducted in 1871–72, recorded: "140½ millions of Hindus and Sikhs, or 73½ per cent., 40¾ millions of Muslims, or 21½ per cent." Muslims today constitute only 14% of the population. They should also have noted that in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the Hindu population has increased by nearly 100% over the last decade or so. Should this be a cause for alarm among Christians in those countries? Only racists concern themselves with increases or decreases in the population of any community within their countries.

"Muslim intellectuals" seeking salvation at the altar of the RSS must not forget that Muslims, Islam and other minorities in India can survive only as long as the Indian democratic-secular-egalitarian polity framed under the guidance of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar survives. It may have many infirmities, but it remains the only guarantee against majoritarianism and Hindutva bigotry.

In this regard, the RSS is not only antithetical to Muslims but to the Indian democratic-secular Constitution itself. The Indian Constituent Assembly approved the Constitution on November 26, 1949. The RSS instantly rejected it through an editorial in its English organ Organiser (November 29), demanding the promulgation of Manusmriti. Earlier, RSS icon V.D. Savarkar had declared it the most worshippable scripture after the Vedas. It should be noted that Manusmriti decrees sub-human status for Hindu women and Shudras. It was burnt on December 25, 1927 in the presence of Dr. Ambedkar during the Mahad agitation; he also called upon the nation to commemorate that day as Manusmriti Dahan Divas.

The RSS has hated every symbol of democratic-secular Indian polity. On the eve of Independence, Organiser (August 14, 1947) denigrated the National Flag by declaring that it would "never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours… is injurious to a country." In the same issue, in an editorial titled "Whither," the RSS rejected the entire concept of a secular state, arguing: "In Hindusthan only the Hindus form the nation and the national structure must be built on that safe and sound foundation… the nation itself must be built up of Hindus, on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas and aspirations."

Qureshi gleefully informs us that Mohan Bhagwat emphasised three things: that Hindutva is an inclusive concept in which all communities have equal room; that the Indian Constitution is sacrosanct and the entire country must abide by it; and that Muslims will not be disenfranchised. He sought to dispel the fear that the RSS is seeking to abandon the Constitution at the first opportunity. Had the "Muslim intellectuals" been familiar with Savarkar's Hindutva (1923) and Golwalkar's We or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) and Bunch of Thoughts (1966), these claims would not have gone unchallenged. The first two texts, which serve as holy books for the RSS, demand the cleansing of Muslims and Christians from India in the manner in which Jews were cleansed by Hitler in Germany. The last contains a chapter (Chapter XVI) titled "Internal Threats," which declares Muslims and Christians to be internal enemy number one and number two respectively, and describes the Indian Constitution as worthless and anti-Hindu. Mohan Bhagwat has never disowned these works.

Interestingly, the RSS has issued no statement corroborating the "Muslim intellectuals'" version of events. According to press reports, RSS prachar pramukh (national publicity chief) Sunil Ambekar declined to comment.

Not only Muslims but all Indians want to know who will finance the creation and running of CFF units in all 28 state capitals and all 802 districts of the country — a total of 830 units. Even national political parties have not been able to maintain a presence on such a gigantic scale. These "Muslim intellectuals" appear to be flush with money. Whose money will it be? It seems the RSS has roped in the Adanis and Ambanis — who have been bankrolling the Hindutva project — into this venture as well. There is another dimension to consider: with Najeeb Jung, Qureshi, Javed Ansari, Sherwani, Shah and Siddiqui taking charge of the RSS's Muslim outreach programme, what becomes of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, which has hitherto been grooming RSS stooges among Muslims?

It is deeply troubling that a group of "Muslim intellectuals," purportedly speaking on behalf of "the middle class and educated Muslim" — as Shahid Siddiqui himself confessed after the August 2022 meeting — are now legitimising an organisation that is waiting for an opportune moment to dismantle the world's largest democracy. They did not bother to confront the RSS chief with the facts of the pauperisation of common Indians, mounting unemployment, hunger or violence against women. These issues should have been their primary concern, since Muslims, standing at the lowest rung socially, financially and politically, are naturally the worst sufferers.

Sadly, they did not raise the rampant use of terror laws by governments run by RSS cadres — laws under which large numbers of Muslim activists, as well as non-Muslim activists, are being held in prolonged detention. These are critical times for Indian democracy. If it is demolished, there is no possibility of survival for minorities, including Muslims. India needs intellectuals who will stand in defence of Indian democracy — not those who surrender before an extra-constitutional organisation, known as one of the most lethal extremist forces in the world today, for personal gain.