Didi to bestow fiscal blessings on Imams

Sacred secularist practice brings tears to eyes!

Jai Ho!

Didi (Ms. Mamata Banerjee, Bengal Chief Minister) is all set to preside a convergence of Imams, coming from all over the state, on April 3, 2012 at the Netaji Indoor Stadium! This is not a myth but a reality which is going to be perceived by people, both of Bengal and across the globe, at 4 pm on the fateful day. And what is most striking – it is official; an unknown facet in the history of Bengal from 1947 thus far. Without doubt, this is a desperate effort to entice Muslims ahead of the impending panchayat polls. The meeting is being organized by the government making use of revenues of citizens of Bengal, cutting across religious affiliations. Forget of religious implications – is this act ethical? If it is, supporters of this act must be asked politely to define the word called “ethics” yet again and in clear terms.

Now let’s look into the main factors behind such an effort. On the word of Idris Ali, chairman, All India Muslim Forum, the event has been organized by the government of West Bengal, Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education Department and the West Bengal Minorities Development Finance Corporation. What’s more, Mamata Banerjee (Hon’ble Chief Minister) will be the chief guest altogether and she will discuss there an assortment of schemes for minorities; without doubt, they happen to be Muslims on the whole.       

Even if nothing (of the main issues of program) is confirmed yet, it is alleged that the subject of reconstitution of Imams’ wages will be pivotal in the convergence. Readers may remember that such a promise was viewed in the electoral manifesto of Trinamool Congress (TMC). To be precise, at the moment, remunerations of Imams do range between Rs. 500 to Rs. 2,000 and if TMC manifesto is considered, it will be heightened to be around Rs 20,000 and be paid through Wakf Board.   At the moment, 40, 000 Imams are in the state of Bengal.

There are wild expectations also that Bengal CM will declare a CBI inquiry into the Wakf property scam from the same podium, to be used for bestowing fiscal blessings on the Imams and thus to stimulate Islamists to go with their agendas.

Are there other reasons too? Analysts believe that the CM would try to make a damage control to pacify Islamists seething for a series of attacks on their faith in recent days. Will the Hon’ble CM care to demand an apology (at the same instant) from Islamists to hold Kolkata to ransom on March 20, 2012?  Perhaps it will be a new onslaught on secularism replaced by minorityism now! Didi is surely not so heartless.

Can Hindus expect something like this? Perhaps such a question is not a crime and dissonance can’t be equated to disloyalty or subversion. And the answer is clear already – never. Didi has never endeavored to facilitate tens of thousands of Hindu priests across Bengal (likewise or even less than it), living in abject poverty and some of them are living in subhuman conditions even. They are also poor and surely poverty can’t be defined by class or religious standpoints ever.    

What’s going to happen is a blatant act of pacification and one of the most awful instances happened ever in India. Didi is counting on Islamists to get victorious in panchayat election. Isn’t she in need of Hindu votes? What does she fail to comprehend is that (majority) Hindu votes played a crucial role in the recent change of guard in Bengal. And they continue to be disregarded. How Hindus will analyze the development depends on them exclusively but what we can say such blatant acts imperil the institution of secularism (as enshrined in the Constitution of India) only. Can another question be asked? Why are Hindus taken for granted always? Do their civil attitudes happen to be the greatest flaw?

Well, we can’t end the report without referring to the views of Ronald Inden on “Secularism” in India and opinions of such a well-known American Indologist, professor emeritus in the Departments of History and of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago can always be cited.  

Here are his views on Secularism in India – “Nehru’s India was supposed to be committed to ‘secularism'. The idea here in its weaker publicly reiterated form was that the government would not interfere in 'personal' religious matters and would create circumstances in which people of all religions could live in harmony. The idea in its stronger, unofficially stated form was that in order to modernize, India would have to set aside centuries of traditional religious ignorance and superstition and eventually eliminate Hinduism and Islam from people's lives altogether. After independence, governments implemented secularism mostly by refusing to recognize the religious pasts of Indian nationalism, whether Hindu or Muslim, and at the same time (inconsistently) by retaining Muslim ‘personal law’”.