In a most communities youth have a serious struggle on hand to look beyond the present for the future, especially their careers, longing for dignity and a decent existence. While this applies to all the youth, the struggle of youth from marginalized and discriminated against communities are much more. It is on this terrain that, Chetan Bhagat, the popular writer turned columnist, decided to advise Muslim youth about their future path, choices. His advice came in the form of an article, a letter from a Muslim youth, in a leading daily. The article was so insensitive to the plight of Muslims; it amounted to blaming them for their own plight; and so subtly advised them to opt for leaders like Narendra Modi. This was not a direct advice, Modi’s name was not spelt but the hint was obvious.

Muslim youth felt hurt and insulted by the tone and tenor of the letter and wrote a response which is widely circulated on the net. The letter in nutshell points out the plight of Muslim community as a whole and Muslim youth in general; it also expressed the hurt feelings of the youth. The feeling of hurt and anger is oozing through this expression of the sigh of Muslim youth, a group currently facing myriad problems. The letter questions the democracy of ours, “If it were so, Afzal Guru wouldn’t have been executed to ‘’satisfy the collective conscience of the nation’’. Muslim youth would not have fallen prey to minority witch-hunting, and their killers not decorated with gallantry awards.” It also questions the popular perceptions that the Muslims are under the influence of Maulanas and that Muslims vote in herds.

The letter is an apt response to the proclivities of the crass writers like Bhagat. But Bhagat is not alone in not understanding the plight of Muslim youth. There is a large section amongst our population who will buy the type of crudity which Bhagat is displaying in his article. As such Muslim community’s plight has been worst compounded during last three decades. There are multiple factors; some of them have a lot to do with the historical background of Muslims in India, partition tragedy, the ascendance of global terrorism in pursuit of oil wealth by US and coining of the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ by US media. Other factors relate to the rise of communal politics, politics of religious identity and some others have a deeper relation with the communalized state apparatus.

A large section of Indian Muslim community comes from the untouchables, the shudras, who embraced Islam under the influence of Sufi saints. This was done to escape the tyranny of varna-caste system. During colonial period, the poor Muslims plight remained unaffected. This was mainly due to the fact that in the aftermath of 1857 rebellion, British subjected Muslims to greater repression as they held Muslims as having bigger role in 1857 event. When the community started recovering from its snubbing, some efforts for modern education leading to Aligarh Muslim University began in right earnest. Still these efforts were restricted more to the Ashraf, elite and low caste poor Muslims remained where they had been from centuries. Majority of Muslims were part of freedom movement, ignoring the communal appeals of Muslim League. Later Muslim League, which began with the sections of landlords and Nawabs also, started getting some support from section of educated and elite Muslims. With partition, a large section of traders, bureaucrats and educated Muslims left for Pakistan, while the majority of poor Muslims remained here in India.

At the time of partition the average condition of Muslims and dalits was practically similar. Despite that the future trajectory of both these communities was diametrically opposite. Dalit identity gradually gained some respect due to the struggles led by Dr. Ambedkar. Dalits also got reservations. The impact of these was very positive on the march of dalits towards equality. Muslim community had another fate in store. They started being blamed for partition, started being looked down upon as ‘other’ and their employment in Government jobs became difficult, much below their percentage in population. This discriminating against became a sort of disincentive for the youth to go for studies. To add to the woes of the community communal violence directed against them started picking up leading to the increased feeling of insecurity by and by. By now this minority, close to 13-14% has a huge representation amongst the victims of communal violence.

The rise of communal politics, beginning with Shah Bano case and then the aggressive Ram Temple movement, started pushing the community into the margins of the society in a very active way. Muslim political representation in the representative bodies, Lok Sabha (Parliament) –Vidhan Sabhas (state assemblies) started coming down heavily. Ram Temple movement and the accompanying violence left the community gasping for survival. To add to this came the global phenomenon of terrorism, Al Qaeda, its entry into Kashmir and the demonization of Muslims which went up in due course of time particularly after 9/11 2001. The investigating authorities had a simple formula, if there is an act of terror, Muslim youth must have done it.  The consequences of this are simple enough, after every acts of blast arrest hundreds of youth put them behind bars and by the time courts declare them innocent, their future life is ruined and the label of terrorist is permanently stuck on their foreheads. To supplement to this the encounters, Batla House, Ishrat Jahan completed the picture of demonization of Muslim community in general and Muslim youth in particular.

Running parallel to this adverse situation a social humiliation, the attitude of state, police bureaucracy and average people picked up rapidly, and by now Muslims are practically barred from buying houses in the mixed localities, ghettoisation of community in major cities has started going up. A de facto second class citizenship for them is being gradually getting constructed. It is against these odds that a large section of Muslim youth stood firm with grit and determination and made their space in IT world and in occupations which did not require state patronage. As such also many of them have struggled to make their space in non formal professions, films sports. Interestingly even in America, the subjugated class of African Americans has higher representation in Films, music and sports. Their bigger presence in similar areas in India also has its own tale to tell.

In such a situation the sympathetic sounding ‘opponents’ of the ilk of Chetan Bhagat are scattered in different walks of life, giving them advices to the effect that Muslims are responsible for their own plight. When a girl is raped many from such tribe blame the girl for the fate she met, something is wrong with her. Victim as the culprit is the language of the conservative ideologies, Chetan Bhagat does represent such a mind set when he writes to Muslim youth the way he has written this article. 

આજે ઘણા દિવસ પછી "ઓપિનિયન"ની વેબસાઇટ પર લાંબો સમય ગાળ્યો, માણ્યો. "ઓપિનિયન"નો ઓનલાઈન અવતાર જોઈને ખૂબ આનંદ થયો, વિભાગોની ગોઠવણી સરસ છે, "ઓપિનિયન" ઓનલાઈન અને ડાયસ્પોરા એ બંને વિભાગો વિષય સમૃદ્ધ અને સુનિયોજીત રીતે ગોઠવાયા છે. "ઓપિનિયન" મમળાવવાની પી.ડી.એફ ફોર્મેટમાં જેટલી મજા આવતી હતી એવો જ આનંદ અહીં પણ આવશે એવો વિશ્વાસ છે …

શુભેચ્છાઓ ..

સંપાદક

• અક્ષરનાદ.કોમ • http://aksharnaad.com

એક ક્લિકે અનેક ગુજરાતી ઈ પુસ્તકો નિઃશુલ્ક ડાઊનલોડ કરો …. જુઓ અક્ષરનાદનો ઈ-પુસ્તક ડાઊનલોડ વિભાગ ​

We meet under the gloom of a calamity which darkens down over the minds of good men in all civil society, as the fearful tidings travel over sea, over land, from country to country, like the shadow of an uncalculated eclipse over the planet.  Old as history is, and manifold as are its tragedies, I doubt if any death has caused so much pain to mankind as this has caused. 

In this country everyone was struck dumb as he meditated on the ghastly blow.  And perhaps, at this hour, when the coffin that contains the dust of the President sets forward on its long march through mourning states, on its way to his home in Illinois, we might well be silent, and suffer the awful voices of the time to thunder to us.  Yes, but that first despair was brief: the man was not so to be mourned.  He was the most active and hopeful of men; and acclamation of praise for the task he had accomplished burst out into a song of triumph, which even tears for his death cannot keep down. 

The President stood before us as a man of the people; a quite native, aboriginal man, as an acorn from the oak; Kentuckian born, working on a farm, a flatboatman, a country lawyer, a representative in the rural legislature of Illinois – on such modest foundations the broad structure of his fame was laid.  How slowly he came to his place.  All of us remember – it is only a history of five or six years.

A plain man of the people, an extraordinary fortune attended him.  He offered no shining qualities at the first encounter; he did not offend by superiority.  He had a face and manner that disarmed suspicion, which inspired confidence which confirmed goodwill.  He had a strong sense of duty.  Then, he had what farmers call a long head; was excellent in working out the sum for himself; in arguing his case and convincing you fairly and firmly.  Then, it turned out that he was a great worker; had prodigious faculty of performance; worked easily.  A good worker is so rare; everybody has some disabling quality.  In a host of young men that start together and promise so many brilliant leaders for the next age, each fails on trial; one by bad health, one by conceit, or by love of pleasure, or lethargy, or an ugly temper – each has some disqualifying fault that throws him out of the career.  But this man was sound to the core, cheerful, persistent, all right for labor. 

Then he had a vast good nature, which made him tolerant and accessible to all, fair-minded, affable.  And how this good nature became a noble humanity everyone will remember.  Then his broad good humor, running easily into jocular talk, in which he delighted and in which he excelled, was a rich gift to this wise man.  It enabled him to meet every kind of man and every rank in society; to take off the edge of the severest decisions; and to catch with true instinct the temper of every company he addressed. 

He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as pleasantries that it is certain they had not reputation at first but as jests; and only later, by the very acceptance they find in the mouths of millions, turn out to be the wisdom of the hour.  The weight and penetration of many passages in his letters, messages and speeches are destined hereafter to wider fame.  What pregnant definitions; what unerring common sense; what foresight; and, on great occasion, what lofty, what humane tone!  His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on any recorded occasion.

His occupying the chair of state was a triumph of the good sense of mankind.  This middle-class country had got a middle-class president, at last.  This man grew according to the need.  His mind mastered the problem of the day; as the problem grew, so did his comprehension of it.  Rarely was man so fitted to the event.  In the midst of fears and jealousies this man wrought incessantly with all his might and his honesty, laboring to find what the people wanted, and how to obtain that.  It cannot be said there is any exaggeration of his worth.  If ever a man was fairly tested, he was.  There was no lack of resistance, nor of slander, nor of ridicule. 

Then, what an occasion was the whirlwind of the war.  Here was place for no fair-weather sailor; the new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado.  In four year – four years of battle-days – his endurance, his magnanimity were sorely tried and never found wanting.  There, by his courage, his justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the center of a heroic epoch.  He is the true history of the American people in his time.  Step by step he walked before them; slow with their slowness, quickening his march by theirs, the true representative of this continent: an entirely public man; father of his country, the pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds articulated by his tongue.

The ancients believed in a serene and beautiful Genius which ruled in the affairs of nations; which, with a slow but stern justice, carried forward the fortunes of certain chosen houses, and securing at last the firm prosperity of the favorites of Heaven.  It was too narrow a view of the Eternal Nemesis.  There is a serene Providence which rules the fate of nations, which makes little account of time, little of one generation or race, makes no account of disasters, conquers alike by what is called defeat or by what is called victory, thrusts aside obstruction, crushes everything immoral as inhuman, and obtains the ultimate triumph of the best race by the sacrifice of everything which resists the moral laws of the world.  It makes its own instruments, creates the man for the time, trains him in poverty, inspires his genius, and arms him for his task. 

[condensed by Mahendra Meghani from a speech delivered at the funeral services held in Concord, MA on April 19, 1865 for the martyred President.]

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Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on May 25, 1803 in Boston, USA.  At Harvard University, he won prizes for his oratory and essays.  He was forced to interrupt his courses because of eye trouble.  In 1826 he began a career as a minister.  He married Ellen Tucker in 1829, despite the fact that she was already ill with tuberculosis; she died two years later at the age of nineteen.

After a visit to Europe where he met prominent authors, Emerson settled in Concord, Massachusetts.  What would eventually be called the Transcendental Club had begun to form around him.  The spiritual ferment of the Concord group found expression in Emerson’s first significant work, the essay “Nature”.

Emerson became closely associated with Henry David Thoreau.  He gave up preaching and collaborated with Margaret Fuller on the journal The Dial, in which he began to publish his essays.  These appeared in book form as Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series.  He became more involved in political issues, launching attacks on slavery.  His essays had made him an internationally known figure.  He published further collections of his essays – Nature, Addresses and Lectures and others while lecturing against slavery.

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