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Late in the ninth century CE, the great physician, chemist and philosopher, Muhammad ibn Zakaria al-Razi, launched a scathing attack on the pietist ideological foundations of the world he lived in.
‘All men being by their nature equal,’ he argued in his magnum opus, Fi Nekdh al-Adyan, or Refutation of Revealed Religions, ‘the prophets cannot claim any intellectual or spiritual superiority. The miracles of the prophets are impostures or belong to the domain of pious legend.’
The theist’s counter-argument, he said, was violence: ‘asked about the proof for the soundness of their religion, they flare up, get angry and spill the blood of whoever confronts them’.
Last month’s silencing of Salman Rushdie, preceded and followed as it was by a succession of faith-inspired attacks on free speech, tempts one to believe little has changed in a thousand years.
That isn’t true. The organisers of the Jaipur Literature Festival barred a videoconference with Mr. Rushdie, fearing it would provoke violence — but not one bus was burned or a stone thrown when he went on national television that very night. Mr. Rushdie’s name hasn’t even figured in campaigning in Uttar Pradesh. Had it not been for the helping hand of the Indian government, it is improbable the clerics of Deoband would have succeeded in Jaipur.
In more than two decades, the clerics have not staged a single mass-mobilisation of consequence. This fate and Deoband’s contrasting success in Pakistan help illuminate the prospects of communal politics in India.
Founded in 1867 in an old mosque shaded by a pomegranate tree, Deoband represented the clerical class’ effort to defend the faith after the fall of Mughal power. Like the new western-modelled institutions then springing up across India, it had a formal curriculum and rigorous examinations; less than half of the 20 subjects taught were exclusively religious. The Deoband graduate was to be equipped to deal with a modernising world, not just employment as a Maulvi.
Deoband’s image
Deoband’s image as the ideological vanguard of the modern jihadist movement has not a little to do with its dramatic growth in Pakistan’s Punjab. In 1929, dissidents who broke away from the Congress-led Khilafat movement set up the Majlis-i-Ahrar-i-Islam. The Ahrar campaigned against Hindu and Sikh monarchs, and attacked what it characterised as Shi’a and Ahmadiyah heresies. In 1953, the Ahrar spearheaded a violent campaign seeking the sacking of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Chaudhry Zafarullah Khan, an Ahmadi. The clerics won. Pakistan’s 1956 Constitution decreed it would henceforth be called an ‘Islamic Republic,’ and pass no laws repugnant to the Koran or the Hadith. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto declared Islam the state religion, promised to bring secular laws into line with the Shariah, and introduced blasphemy laws which ejected the Ahmadiyah from Islam.
His successor, the military despot Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, expanded state patronage to Deobandi-jihadist groups. Key among those groups was the Harkat-ul-Ansar, co-founded in 1991 by Maulana Masud Azhar and Fazl-ur-Rahman Khalil. In 1999, following Azhar’s release from an Indian prison in return for the lives of passengers on board an aircraft hijacked to Kandahar, he set up the Jaish-e-Muhammad — still one of the largest jihadist organisations.
From the Fathul Jawwad, Azhar’s disquisition on four Koranic verses dealing with jihad — which, parenthetically, is perfectly legal read in India — it becomes evident that Deoband degenerated into a cult of death. ‘The light of the sun and water,’ Azhar writes, ‘are essential for crops; otherwise they go waste. In the same way, the life of nations depends on martyrs. The national fields can be irrigated only with the blood of the best hearts and minds.’
The Jaish reaches out, as this language suggests, to an audience of small and landless peasants — but one which can see clearly what lies inside the barred gates of the capitalist earthly paradise. ‘As we fly in aeroplanes in this world,’ he writes, ‘the souls of martyrs, entering into the bodies of green birds, fly in Paradise for recreation’.
‘Having no alternative ideology like Marxism or Liberalism or even language-symbols which may challenge the feudal stranglehold,’ social scientist Tahir Kamran has explained, ‘Deobandi militancy remains one of the few ways to counter it.’
In a magisterial 2009 essay, Pakistani scholar Ayesha Siddiqa illuminated the despair of the peasantry. ‘A few years ago,’ Dr. Siddiqa wrote, ‘I met some young boys from my village near Bahawalpur who were preparing to go on jihad. They smirked politely when I asked them to close their eyes and imagine their future: ‘we can tell you without closing our eyes that we don’t see anything’.’
Figures put together by the India Data Lab at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, using National Sample Survey statistics, help understand why Deoband’s fortunes in India continue to nosedive. The average Uttar Pradesh Muslim’s monthly per-capita expenditure has risen from Rs.138.73 in 1987-1988 to Rs.824.15 in 2009-2010. Then, between two-thirds and four-fifths of Muslims were illiterate across Uttar Pradesh’s five regions; now the figure has dropped to below half in all but one region, the southern upper Ganga plain. Less than one per cent of Muslims had a graduate degree in 1987-1988 except in the State’s central region; the figures for 2009-2010 showed three-fold growth. The expansion in the number of Muslims who had graduated from middle-school was even stronger.
New middle class
Endemic discrimination remains a fact of life for Muslims: their average monthly per-capita expenditure and education levels, for example, remain below State average. Yet, the kernel of a new middle class, the vanguard of a future political leadership, is manifesting itself. Ever since 2010, the Deoband clerics have been reaching out to this class — aware that it, like them, is rejecting the peasant Barelvi traditions which the vast majority of Indian Muslims endorse.
This new middle class, though, is repelled by Deoband’s reactionary posture — an attitude exemplified by the seminary’s hostility to women entering the workplace. The seminary’s online fatwa service illustrates how deep these attitudes run. May a successful private sector worker shave? No. May a student overseas work at a pork-using Pizza Hut to make pocket money? No. May families attend weddings with ‘dance, song, mixing of men and women, photography or videography’? No. In one fatwa, a believer seeking sanction for visiting a historic church is upbraided: ‘the good effect of one’s Islam is that he gives up nonsense things’.
In an essay in the Milli Gazette, commentator Saad Shadi offered insight into the challenge that now confronts faith-centred politics. The war over Mr. Rushdie, he asserted, was ‘between the God-centred view of the universe with the theory of nihilism [sic.]‘. Failure to effectively fight that battle, he noted, had made it ‘difficult for ordinary Muslims to make sense of striking the balance between tradition and modernity and they either become desacralised or withdraw into their shell.’
Declining hold of faith
Put simply, the fact is this: Deoband is dying because the social classes and conditions from which it drew its strength have changed. Deoband’s clerics aren’t the only faith-based political order to be facing this crisis: organised Hinduism has haemorrhaged followers to new-age gurus; Sikhism to a range of eclectic cults. Faiths, as a whole, exercise less of a hold on lives than political struggles for equity or, for that matter, a popular film and the veneration of consumer goods — facts which have helped secular politics sustain itself and grow.
Ever since the barbaric assault on the Babri Masjid in December 1992, no communal issue has had a national impact; even the savage carnage Gujarat saw in 2002 failed to propel the Hindutva movement to power. Even though communalism remains a depressing part of India’s political landscape, its lethality is diminishing. From successive reports of the National Crime Records Bureau, it is clear that communal violence is in decline; in 2010, religious hatred ranked below lunacy and witchcraft as a cause of murders. Hindutva terrorism has arisen precisely because of this: the large-scale riot, the traditional instrument of communal power-projection, has been greatly undermined.
Economist Joseph Schumpeter once described capitalism as a ‘civilisation’: an accurate description of a system of relations that reorders not just relationships of wealth, but culture, civic association and the most intimate transactions that characterise our personal lives. In India, faith and this new civilisation are pitted against each other in an epic battle — and god’s armies are losing.
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Ankur choudhary is working with rubicon publicer pvt.ltd (http://www.urdutahzeeb.net). Before joining, he worked for one year,easytips.com, hitgroveinfo.com for news .He has b.com pass degree from Delhi University, delhi. Now He is practicing seo webmaster .
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Is My workplace hostile?
I am working for a wholesale club in the food court, I have a co worker who I have really tried to work with and I just cannot do it. She is very hyper, so much so that a customer asked her to calm down because she was making him nervous. We each have tasks for closing the department at the end of the night, she is always jumping in and doing my job then talks to me like I asked her to do it for me?! She has told lies to the manager about me and he is on her side because, as he put it, shes a go getter (he doesn’t seem to see the sloppy jobs she does) and she is a friend of his mother(that’s how she got the job) He told me he is not anyone’s friend but she is the only one who has his home phone number. He also told her that he was going to have to fire another employee and I don’t know the laws in every company, but are managers supposed to talk to one employee about another? This company guarantees 24 hours a week to part time people, which is what I am, and each week I see she always has 26 to 30 hours and I have no more than 25, and also you have to take a lunch at the 5 hour mark, which is mandatory, so he gives me 5 1/2 hour days to make it look like I am getting 24 hours and in reality I am only getting around 22-23 at the most. I have closed with all of the other employees and we always get the job done with plenty of time to spare but every time I close with her we always go over, I can’t really explain why, she gets in my way and is verbally abusive, and lets you know without saying a word if she doesn’t like the job your doing. She was hired at the same time I was, but she has proceeded to tell me from day one what to do, like she knew everything. I have talked to management, and they say I just have to get along with her and that I must just have a bad attitude because she is so nice to them, well they don’t have to work with her either, shes a different animal when they are not around. I am trying to find another job (I actually have an AS in computer engineering) but right now there are few jobs to be had so I don’t want to quit until i have another, but I don’t want to dread going to work. I am getting physically sick thinking about it.
Answer
While unpleasant, the situation does not rise to the level of a ‘hostile work environment” as defined by the EEOC – Equal Employment Occupation Commission. To be unlawful, the conduct must create a work environment that would be intimidating, hostile, or offensive to reasonable people. If you believe that you are being harassed to the degree that your work environment has become ‘hostile’ the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive and is based on discrimination against race, gender, age, religion or disability, you can make a claim against the company with the EEOC. Read more about it at http://www.eeoc.gov/types/harassment.html
Harassment is a form of employment discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, (ADEA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, (ADA).
Harassment is unwelcome conduct that is based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, and/or age. Harassment becomes unlawful where 1) enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment, or 2) the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive. Anti-discrimination laws also prohibit harassment against individuals in retaliation for filing a discrimination charge, testifying, or participating in any way in an investigation, proceeding, or lawsuit under these laws; or opposing employment practices that they reasonably believe discriminate against individuals, in violation of these laws.
Petty slights, annoyances, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) will not rise to the level of illegality. To be unlawful, the conduct must create a work environment that would be intimidating, hostile, or offensive to reasonable people.
Offensive conduct may include, but is not limited to, offensive jokes, slurs, epithets or name calling, physical assaults or threats, intimidation, ridicule or mockery, insults or put-downs, offensive objects or pictures, and interference with work performance. Harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances, including, but not limited to, the following:
The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, a supervisor in another area, an agent of the employer, a co-worker, or a non-employee.
The victim does not have to be the person harassed, but can be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.
Unlawful harassment may occur without economic injury to, or discharge of, the victim.
Prevention is the best tool to eliminate harassment in the workplace. Employers are encouraged to take appropriate steps to prevent and correct unlawful harassment. They should clearly communicate to employees that unwelcome harassing conduct will not be tolerated. They can do this by establishing an effective complaint or grievance process, providing anti-harassment training to their managers and employees, and taking immediate and appropriate action when an employee complains. Employers should strive to create an environment in which employees feel free to raise concerns and are confident that those concerns will be addressed.
Employees are encouraged to inform the harasser directly that the conduct is unwelcome and must stop. Employees should also report harassment to management at an early stage to prevent its escalation.
Employer Liability for Harassment
The employer is automatically liable for harassment by a supervisor that results in a negative employment action such as termination, failure to promote or hire, and loss of wages. If the supervisor’s harassment results in a hostile work environment, the employer can avoid liability only if it can prove that: 1) it reasonably tried to prevent and promptly correct the harassing behavior; and 2) the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer.
The employer will be liable for harassment by non-supervisory employees or non-employees over whom it has control (e.g., independent contractors or customers on the premises), if it knew, or should have known about the harassment and failed to take prompt and appropriate corrective action.
When investigating allegations of harassment, the EEOC looks at the entire record: including the nature of the conduct, and the context in which the alleged incidents occurred. A determination of whether harassment is severe or pervasive enough to be illegal is made on a case-by-case basis.
If you believe that the harassment you are experiencing or witnessing is of a specifically sexual nature, you may want to see EEOC’s information on sexual harassment.
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