Muslim Alienation in Andhra Pradesh

By (late) Prof Abdur Rahim

The 80-lakh strong Muslim community in Andhra Pradesh today stands at cross-roads. There's a clear sense of alienation and marginalisation and this is the first time in many years that the principal minority community finds itself "insecure".
The recent terror events and subsequent police excesses on Muslim youths coupled with the State government's failure to reassure the community has further compounded the problem. Beginning May 18, when a bomb went off at the historic Mecca Masjid, the police have been hounding Muslim youths
sporting skull cap or beard, detaining them illegally and subjecting them to untold torture.
But the police failed to substantiate the charge of terror for which they had been held. Cases not connected with terror were booked against them to ensure that the Muslim youths remain within the four walls of prison though they did not breach law. All those even remotely linked to terror suspect Shahed alias Bilal are put behind the bars.
The police intensified midnight knocks after two more bombs killed over two dozen people at a recreation park and an eatery on August 25. The police targeted Muslim youths with some background of participating in protest demonstrations on occasions like December 6 (Babri demolition). Most of the victims of police torture are those who were behind Moulana Naseeruddin, now lodged in a Gujarat jail.
The State Minorities Commission, which normally remains indifferent to the sufferings of the community, woke up from its slumber to blame the administration for targeting Muslims, though there are enough indications of involvement of miscreants and fundamentalists from the majority community.
The bad handling of the situation by the Rajasekhar Reddy government and the Home Minister's pat to the police will go down as a dark phase in the history of Muslims of Andhra Pradesh. The year 2007 will be remembered by the community for many years to come as the "year of police terror and government's slumber on Muslim cause".
Talking about the post-blasts detainees, none of the scores of Muslim youth, arrested and tortured, are really involved. The police and the Intelligence authorities know it well. Yes, some of them have been close to the circle of suspicion. 
But the level of third-degree methods used against them, hardly justifies the proof on which they have based their investigations. Mossad-style equipment was used to give electric shocks to their genitals.
Some have even complained of impotency. Can there be anything more inhuman? Just to eke out confessions which do not stand the scrutiny of the judiciary! Instructions for this could have come from anywhere, here, from the Centre or from abroad. But the authorities have only enlarged the circle of hatred.
People living in despair, without a future, in bitterness, in abject poverty, can become very frustrated and dangerous. The childish advice that a particular political party can stem the Muslim backlash, if and when it  comes, is an exercise in futility. The solution is to contain the virus, still in its embryonic stage, to reach out to them and heal their wounds. Set them free, but keep a strict vigil.
The clear-cut alienation of the community has made the State and the Central governments sit up and think. But much damage has been done to the delicate secular fabric.
Muslim elders wonder what makes the police suspect only the Muslims whenever something bad takes places in Hyderabad or elsewhere in the country. Unless the police change their pre-conceived notions and subject themselves to impartial inquiry, the community will continue to look at the police with suspicion. Alienation of such a large portion of population will have a negative impact on secularism and democracy.
In some instances the Muslims themselves are responsible for their plight. Illiteracy, lack of openness and zealous statements by community leaders have only added to the suspicion of the police. Unfortunately, the
governments too have been obsessed with the "Muslim phobia". Taking advantage of the government’s general mood, police are quick to brand Muslims as those helping terrorists.

The Divide Within

Let’s turn over the leaves of history pages to understand the Muslim psyche. Even within the Muslim community there had been a long but invisible divide. This divide has been there right from the Independence. Muslim alienation in Andhra Pradesh, particularly Hyderabad, needs to be understood in its correct perspective.
If we look at the situation of Muslims in pre and post partition days, the population was divided vertically between the Muslim elites (the so-called Nawabs, the landed and educated gentry, and the bureaucrats) and the impoverished Muslim masses eking out their living pulling rickshaws and tongas or selling goods on thela-bundis or unorganized labour, largely uneducated living in 800 odd slums that dotted the Hyderabad.
Few people today remember the holocaust during Police Action, when over half-a-million Muslims of the erstwhile Hyderabad State were either slaughtered or uprooted from their homes and hearths in Nanded, Latur, Parbhani, Osmanabad, Bheed and Nagpur, Kamptee, Amravati and Akola, of erstwhile Berar.
Those who survived took shelter in the city, dispersed in "34 refugee camps" spread from Barkas in the south to Erragadda in the North of the city, all living in squalor in shanty slums, almost cheek by jowl. The Muslim elite looked at them as an unwelcome blot on the cultured horizon of their blissfully happy Hyderabad "Farkunda Buniyaad".
They were never considered, even in their weakest religious moments, as brothers of the Faith. They were the outcasts and the leprous face of the Muslim polity. Sixty years later, the situation is no different. The Muslim elite have managed to feather their nests, by harking on the poverty of the Muslim masses and were able to garner enough largesse from their political masters, Congress or TDP, to last them for ten more generations. Muslim leadership was successful in fooling the masses that the fruits of their
riches will trickle down to them soon. Yes, today we have more schools and colleges, professional and others, with the number of educated having doubled, but the number of uneducated masses, impoverished and forlorn, having multiplied ten-fold. There lies the dilemma. The question is, who is alienated, between the two. The biggest irony is that the Muslim leadership cites hundreds of communal riots that have pulverised
the Muslim masses, even blaming successive State Governments, mostly Congress, for their apathy and even connivance. Crocodile tears. No sooner the tumult dies down; the Muslim elite are back at their old game, picking up the crumbs that are thrown at them by the ruling parties. Even with the post blast detainees in the Cherlapally jail, the current tussle
for various posts in the Urdu Academy, the Wakf Board and the Minorities Financial Corporation, is the shameless face of our Muslim elite. With every incident of injustice or oppression, suddenly one sees the emergence of various Relief Funds, meant for the poor Muslims, 40-50% eaten away by the promoters as "Kaffaf" (wages for collection). The latest being the Relief Fund sought food and clothing for the illegal
detainees accused in the bomb blasts and their families. Nothing could be more ridiculous. After all, it is the duty of every Muslim to come to the aid of their oppressed and discriminated brothers. Where is the need for a media-generated donation-collection spree?
The poet Taher Farz says: "Ye shauk-e-siasat bhi hai ajab, Is shauk-e-siasat mein Taher, Jab logon ke ghar bik jaten hain to kuch logon ke ghar ban jate hain" ("This lure of politics is a strange addiction, where people are forced to sell their homes, so that, a few others can build their own.")

Remedial Measures

Monetary sops will not help (What is Rs.5-10 lakhs, here and there). Vigilance should be felt rather than be seen. Police morale should be based on the confidence and trust that the public have on them, not on their self- ordained "right to be brutal".
One thing that emerges is that the Muslim masses are also alienated from their leadership. An Urdu couplet highlights their angst. "Aap ghairon ki bath karte hain Hamne apne bhi aazmain hain, Log kanto se bach ke chalte hain, Hum ne apnon se zakm khaiy hain" ("You speak of those against us, but we have tried our own brethren, While people avoid the thorns in their paths, We have been injured by our own brethren".)
The time has come to usher in a new renaissance, among the Muslim masses post May-August blasts. They need to reassess their problems, identify their friends and foes from among themselves. Who will lead them towards empowerment, towards a life of dignity and honour?
Today Muslims in Hyderabad, as never before, can easily boast of some of brightest engineers, doctors, IT specialists, and potential administrators. They need to be absorbed both in the public and private employment. Reservations and quotas won’t work. Political will is necessary. They will have to be made participants in governance, the essence of democracy.

(Late Prof Abdur Rahim was former head of department of journalism and mass
communication, Osmania University, Hyderabad)