This book is a personal testimony of the editor Ather Farouqui who belches out his pent-up feelings about Indian Muslims that finds unequivocal support from denizens of society turning into his contributor for this book. It is also an outcome of his Indian Muslim identity pitted against the Hindu viewpoint as well as the news media. And thus the book has been appellated ? Muslims And Media Images; News versus Views.
Perceptions about Muslims in the west stands different from the Indian perspective because Muslims form an integral part of Indian society. The British conquest ushered in a tumultuous change in the Hindu society with Bengal renaissance on the center stage but the Muslim society remained in doldrums. The feudal section of Muslims in colonial India prodded the creation of Pakistan. Muslim thinkers and Muslim leaders remained dormant to spearhead any radicalism. Creation of Bangladesh eroded the pragmatism of the two-nation theory. And thus a perpetual state of unrest for asserting ?cultural hegemony? wildfires across Pakistan jeopardising the fabric of civil society.
Kuldip Nayar in his input reminiscences his first journalistic debut that kickstarted with an Urdu paper, Anjum. It was then the highest circulated Urdu daily. This paper promoted and vouched for the creation of Pakistan. Anjum circulation was dwindling though it remained the most widely read paper among the Muslims. The readers hung albatross round its neck for falling in line with Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The Muslim press had despised Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad'swarning about the creation of Pakistan. He had envisaged that once Pakistan is carved out, Muslims would remain, ?backward industrially, educationally and economically, they will be left to the mercies of what would then be called an unadulterated Hindu Raj?. Kuldip Nayar has lamented about the communal politicians who fester the minds of credulous citizens. ?Seeds of distrust have been planted in the minds of the Muslims, while the Hindus have been told that they are unjustly coerced into making concessions to the Muslims in economic, social and cultural fields?.
The par excellence journalist Chandan Mitra takes up an issue intriguing Muslims in India. ?English language media does not project a true and positive picture of the community. Largely Chandan Mitra defers with their perception. He squarely blames ?the Urdu press run by Muslims that has done more damage to the Muslim image in India than any other language media?. Many scholars and Muslim readers even echo this sentiment. However, government files reflect a steady progress in Urdu journalism. Even Ather Farouqui puts it cogently, ??the prospects remain that Urdu journalism will continue the traditional game of arousing Muslim sentiments through provocative writing, and render them susceptible to the influence of the communal leadership?. The English media projects the pan-Indian picture unaware of the sentiments of a regional language media, something that happens with Hindi too, not alone Urdu. Chandan Mitra is candid to confess, ?It is true that English media often picks up wrong Muslim voices that do not represent the community?. He cites the stereotyped misconception in the media about Dar-ul-Uloom saying, ?Muslims did nothing substantive to remove this misconception. They just blame the media but cannot request the ulema not to issue fatwas that makes a mockery of the entire community?. The editor is upbeat about Muslims in South India and West Bengal who never gave credence to Urdu as their lingua franca holding it an insignia of their religious identity. This hindered the entry for Pakistan in South India except in Hyderabad. North-Indian Muslims have been jingoists ever since and imposed their superiority over south-Indian Muslims. Chandan Mitra lashes out a diatribe against the prevailing madrasa education that has been spurting on account of economic backwardness of the common Muslims. This lackadaisical state proliferates due to, ?failure of our national education policy and the constitutional obligation to treat Muslims at par in education too?.
Ather Farouqui tears a leaf from an article that once appeared in Outlook weekly written by none than its editor, Vinod Mehta tosses jurisprudence upon his readers. He lets large a non-partisan view of Indian Muslims (though Ather Farouqui confines his addressed category to North Indian Muslims. The ?Hindu perception of Muslim? invigorates the sanctity of perception. ?A perception is a perception?right or wrong is another matter. Politicians in India have shrewdly realised the criticality of perception. The fact that the image has little or no relation with reality is irrelevant. Finally, in the voter'smind it is not the reality which counts but the perception?. And as such, ?Our sensibility is under assault?. Vinod Mehta doles out only one suggestion ? ?Most Hindus make up their mind about Muslims on the basis of the Muslim faces they see and the Muslim voices they hear?. And these quaint ideas that come wafting from octogenarians and nonagenarians concoct and fester the mind of Hindus.
The editor interjects ? ?Who'sthe Real Muslim?? Ather Farouqui is emphatic to point out ? ?Surely, Indian Muslims have two identities: one as members of the wider Indian society, sharing all that is good and bad with other Indians of their region and class; and the other as members of the pan-Islamic community that includes other Muslim societies?. This pan-Islamic sentiment prevails amongst north-Indian Muslims while Indian rural Muslims and non-Bihari Bengali Muslims of West Bengal mingle more widely with the Indian society at large finding oneness.
This book opines through the contributions of discerning people of society from all walks of life to prove that prevalent speculations and conjectures slither away. The editor superimposes and refracts ideas to analyse the Indian Muslim society dogged by skewed notions.
(Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110 001.)
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