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Maa Tujhe Salaam
Vande Matram Controversy to the fore again
BY: RAM PUNIYANI

Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind on 2nd Nov 2009 passed a resolution asking Muslims not to recite Vande Mataram on the ground that some verses of the national song are against the tenets of Islam. Similar fatwa was also passed by Darul Ulum Deoband three years ago, when the controversy had begun afresh. Incidentally the same organizations have also passed the fatwa that violence, terrorism is against the concept of Islam.

Hell broke loose, with the fatwa on Vande Matram. The self appointed custodians of nationalism and section of media asserted that this fatwa is anti National. Some went onto assert that ‘Vande Matram Kahna Hoga’ (One will have to say Vande Matram). Earlier Shiv Sena in particular, had dictated that ‘Is Desh Mein Rahna hai to Vande Matram Kahna Hoga’ (If one has to live in this country they must say-sing Vande Matram. So on one extreme, Don’t Sing Vande Matram, on the other you will have to sing Vande Matram.

There is a vast middle ground. Most of the Muslim participants in the television talk shows and many other Muslim leaders, including the minister for minority affairs, Salman Khursheed and many Muslim intellectuals said that this fatwa is unacceptable and not worth giving any importance as Indian Constitution has settled the matter. The first two stanzas of the song, which are free from the Hindu imageries, are to be sung. Many a commentators also pointed out that the singing of any song cannot be imposed as that violates the freedom of religion as guaranteed by the constitution.

So we have three major streams of opinion on the Song issue. On one extreme, Muslim orthodox-conservatives like from Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind are opposing it. Middle ground from amongst Muslims and Hindus not making a big issue of someone’s singing or not singing it. As a matter of fact majority of Muslims are stating that they have no problem in singing the song and that they will sing it. On the other extreme is the RSS fatwa, intimidating and assertive, that the song must be sung.

This song as such has a complex history. It was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and, later was made a part of his novel Anand Math. This novel has strong anti Muslim rhetoric. This song was very popular with a section of society, but Muslim League strongly objected to the song, as the song compares India with Goddess Durga. Islam being monotheistic religion does not recognize any other God-Goddess than Allah. Many others belonging to monotheistic religions also had problem with this song. In 1937, the Song committee of the Indian National Congress with Nehru and Maulana Abul Kalam amongst others as members selected Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem and picked up first two stanzas of Vande Matram as national song.

Supreme Court had also to deal with this issue. School-children from the ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses faith’ had refused to sing the national anthem because their religion forbade them to sing it, due to which the school expelled the students. The matter went to Supreme Court, which observed that a secular court cannot enquire into the correctness or otherwise of religious beliefs and that not singing this song due to religious beliefs is not against Indian Constitution. The ground on which court gave its verdict was the assessment whether the belief is genuinely and conscientiously held by a sizable section of the community, and that the belief is not opposed to public order and morality. The Supreme Court struck down the students’ expulsion as violative of their freedom of religion guaranteed by Article 25 of the Constitution and students were taken back.

Soli Sorabjee one of our celebrated legal luminary takes the cue from Justice Chinnappa Reddy to explain the rationale of the judgment, “Our tradition teaches tolerance; our philosophy preaches tolerance; our constitution practices tolerance; let us not dilute it”. The controversy has been raging, more so since 2006 when the UPA Government called for singing of the song in schools.

Interestingly even the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee had asked Sikhs not to sing Vande Matram, but most of the Sikhs defied that and continued singing the song. One of the most touching rendition of Vande Matram, Maa Tujhe Salaam, has come from none other than A.R.Rahman, the celebrated Indian music maestro.

To use general labels like anti national for such fatwas is very misplaced. Same Jamat-I-Islami Hind is the one which stood solidly with the concept of composite Indian nationalism, opposing India’s partition, rejecting the two nation theory of communalists. And there are shades and shades of opinions amongst Muslims. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni and many other Muslim clerics went along with the idea of singing first two stanzas of the song. Legally while Constitution recognizes Vande Matram as a National Song, it also gives us the freedom of religion, and the Supreme Court judgments have struck down the extreme position that Anthem-Song must be sung.

Father of the nation, the heart and soul of Indian Nationalism, who united all the people cutting across religion, caste and gender, Mahatma Gandhi, also came to the conclusion that Jana Gana Mana and not Vande Matram, should be the National Anthem. But this conclusion of Gandhi was not acceptable to Nathuram Godse who made this as one of the points of anger against the father of the nation leading to Godse’s assassinating the father of the nation.

So how does one reconcile to differences in a democratic society? Dr. Ambedkar pointed out that in a democracy the minority should gradually try to overcome its separate ‘minority identity’, and the majority should create a situation where minority does not feel insecure and has to retreat inside the shell of its minority identity. One feels the more we create a situation where minorities can live with security, dignity and equity, such fatwa’s will be automatically ignored by most of the minority community. We have seen that in the case with Sikh community, the mandate of SPGC, was totally ignored. And even now amongst Muslims most of them are against this fatwa, so it is time that the other extremists stop sticking anti national label to these conservative groups and more so to the community involved.

Minorities can either be brow beaten to submit to the wish of those claiming to be representing the majority or the situations should be created where minorities feel equally safe and confident in this country to voluntarily and comprehensively overcome such types of dictates, fatwas from one or other section of conservative groups.

Fighting corruption!

It can’t be done without the cooperation of all concerned. Individuals will have to join hands and make it possible that corruption is banished from the society.

By : Salman imtiaz nizami

Corruption has assumed alarming proportions in the recent times. Now hardly any public/private unit is seen safe from the evil as officials tend to slip in the trap of easy money-making, thus deepening the crisis. Personal ethics, which are central to the phenomenon, need to be cultivated and strengthened and people with clean public life must be protected from being tarred with the same brush, as corruption by some spoils the confidence in the system as a whole. At global as well as local level, the issue (state’s crusade against corruption) remains prominently reflected in the election manifestoes of the political parties.

Presently, the phenomenon of corruption is widely debated in industrialized countries, it has become a political issue, resulting in anti-corruption treaties and convention e.g. Organization for economic cooperation and development, Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transaction, and recently Interpol’s 19th Asian regional Conference that concluded on April 13, 2006 at Jakarta propose "inter-state cooperation" to combat corruption. While examination of past and present cases of corruption reveals that it is mixture of bribery, self-enrichment, fraud, cronyism and mismanagement.

The word corruption once used in the sense of ‘moral decay’ but now the concept of corruption is used in many overlapping contexts and legal, economic, political or cultural comparative perspectives. The overlap or semantic intersections to be found in the literature are the original moral decay and abuse of power in return for an advantage. Keeping in mind this intersection, corruption may be defined as, "an improbity or decay in the decision making process in which a decision maker (private corporation or public service) consents or demands to deviate from the criterion that should rule his decision making, in exchange for a reward or the promise or expectation of a reward".

The concept of corruption should be clearly differentiated from fraud, embezzlement and the sheer abuse of power, to enrich one self or one’s associates. It is not about putting one’s hand in the till and other acts which prejudice the employer or the state, though such acts are frequently associated with corruption. Technically, corruption may entail fraud (vice versa), but that depends on the administrative requirements of the surrounding legal system. A simple classification has been made on the basis of a rough function division of decision making situations in which the components of corruption are present. There are decision makers in the public sector, in the private sector and particularly in politics. Between and within these sectors, improper exchange relationships may develop which corrupt the decision making process. In general, it is difficult to make a differentiation between corrupter and corruptee i.e. between the person who induces or initiates the exchange and the person who accepts it. In simple cases, this difference may be discerned, a civil servant makes it clear that he will not stamp a document if... or a contractor makes it clear that granting the contract will result in some extras. While as in bureaucratic corruption, it is not so easy to discern the initiator of corruption. Another aspect that remains implicit is the transition of a corrupt relationship to blackmail. Entering an improper exchange relationship can imply engaging a lifelong immoral bondage from which one cannot walk away at will. The phrase 'you owe me a favour' may be a threat as well as a reminder. As the same may be an effective way of influencing decision making situations. Corruption does not need to consist in an immediate exchange of interests. Providing jobs may be considered an ideal exchange relation between politicians and higher-civil servants. It costs no money and yet it is hardly considered corruption, certainly not by most players in the field. Like the proverbial fish that starts to rot from the head downwards, in organizations corruption develops frequently as a disease that gradually develops from the top down. This development beginning with non-corrupt but questionable conduct, sliding subsequently to the first stages of corruption, may go unnoticed even by the participants themselves. This top-down development towards corruption because of morally defective leadership erodes standards for proper decision making and is likely to result in an organizational disease.

Corruption does not need to be alien to successful leadership though it seems paradoxical. It can develop alongside successful management, at first remaining unseen or veiled and in latter stages being denied by the halo effect of the praised leader’s successes. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to corruption may follow the shinning path of success. Depending on the surrounding socio-political climate, the first steps on this road are not casually connected to corruption and they may even be rationalized under the heading "the good leader deserves the best’. There is a built-in corruptive trap in this rationale.

The more success a leader has, people will not trust him, but will also make allowances for his whims in others matters. However, the increase in trust and indulgence for the leader's whims is not only inversely related to the principle of accountability but also to the openness to critical evaluation of the leader’s deeds. Psychologically, the successful leader will gradually be deprived of negative feedback, just because of his success. This being an important phase in the development of the leader himself and his management, at the same time there is a serious risk of professional leadership deformation. One may observe an aversion for independent minds and a circumvention of the principle of accountability and transparency, unless there is obligatory external auditing. This can be understood while incorporating the standards of decision making in his own person, the leaders of the organization starts behaving as the 'owner’ of the organization. Slowly and steadily he starts paying lip service to conventional standards and principles of management. The blurring of the use of assets of organization for private and organizational aims and with the expenditure for representational purposes, already high, it is becoming less and less clear whether expenses are for the promotion of the organization or the desire of the leader to live in luxury.

Corruption often characterizes as a leadership disease. The attack on and the prevention of corruption must start by concentrating preventive and repressive efforts on the acts and attitudes of the highest levels of private and public leadership. A staircase has to be cleaned downwards from the top. The principles to be applied transparency and accountability are simple, basic management rules for addressing not only corruption but also any form of arbitrary and wasteful leadership.

On minute observation it seems that corruption is very similar to a mushroom. What one can observe is the head and the stem, often provided with a white collar...the essence is the underlying mycetes of hypal threads extending through numerous invisible branches in rotten and sick wood. (Duyne van in his book) Fighting against mushrooms, the outward manifestations, seems a bit futile if the rotten wood remains untouched, so the need of hour is to being tough against such vile enemies in order to prevent the hyphal threads from growing underneath in the rotten wood. Preventing and combating corruption entail carefully interfering with such basic tendencies, which should not be dismissed as something pathological. Designing technical measures to raise barriers against corrupt acts without doing something to develop a public attitude against corruption is meaningless.

Unless the fight against corruption is initiated from the ground level, nothing positive can be expected. If society is to be cleansed from corrupt practices, everyone will have to play his role or else the problem will worsen. Certainly a definition will not help as long as there is no understanding of the intrinsic links that supposedly connect the various aspects of the social universe that fall under the label corruption.

The author is a Journalist and working with a tv channel in Noida as Desk editor and can be reached at salmannizami@gmail.com

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