All India Secular Forum

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

1.Forum News

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

AISF sets up a Convening Committee for Gujarat

By TCN News

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

Vadodra: All India Secular Forum (AISF) held its Third Gujarat State Convention on June 26, 2012 in Vadodra. This is the first state convention of AISF after the passing away of its state convener DigantOza.

There were 60 participants representing various organizations working for justice and peace in Gujarat attended the convention. Participating Organizations : AmanSamuday; Centre for Development; SAFAR; Movement for Secular Democracy; PUCL; ARCH Vahini, ZidniIlma Trust; Parvaz, Sahiyar; Rajpipla Social Service Society; Bharitya Muslim MahilaAndolan; Jan Vikas; Darshan; Lok Kala Manch; Indian Society Youth Movement.

The Convention was inaugurated by Prof. JuzerBandukwala. Among other speakers were Hirenbhai Gandhi, Prakash Shah, Prof. RohitShukla,UttambhaiParmar, ReshmaVohra, Truptiben Shah, RohitPrajapati, DwarikaNathRath, ZakiaSoman, HozefaUjjaini, and others.

Various suggestions for future programmes that came up were as follows:

 Spread the AISF work in new districts and areas, try and get more organizations on to the platform.

 Work for implementation of PM’s 15 point Programme in Gujarat

 Work to bring about awareness on necessity of legislations like Equal Opportunity Commission and Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill 2011

 Struggle for more inclusive schools and institutions. Work to improve education.

 Have our website and post relevant and good articles on the website so that everyone can access the website. Prepare good literature to educate people on the nature and impact of communalism and capitalism. We can also create a blog.

 We should undertake fact finding whenever there are conflicts and should have regular meeting within community and dialoguing with them and listening to them.

 We can have collective reading and discussions, study circles, promote cultural activities like street plays and film exhibitions.

 Organize nagriksammelans to discuss problems of the society to counter caste based sammelans

 We need legal aid and support network

 We need to support each other and hold hands of every organization struggling for justice and communal harmony.

The following members were elected for Gujarat Convening Committee:
HozefaUjjaini (Gujarat State Convenor)
Rashida
Farida
Gita (SAFAR)
ReshmaVohra (Sahiyar)
NoorjehanAnsari
NoorJehan (BMM

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

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All India Secular Forum: Mumbai

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

Dear all,

Our next Study Circle will be held on Thursday, 12th July 2012 from 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.on the topic “Muslim and Reservations”. Language of the Study Circle will be Hindi. Resource person will be Dr. Asgar Ali Engineer and the venue as usual; will be CSSS Office, 603, New Silver Star, Prabhat Colony Road,

Nr.Railway Bridge, Santacruz (East), Mumbai.

You are all invited to participate inthe Study Circle and the discussion that follows.

Regards,

Irfan Engineer

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

2.CSSS Activities

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

Centre for Study of Society and Secularism activities for the month of June 2012

Workshop on Muslim issues for Ulema held in Lucknow

By TCN News,

Lucknow: The Centre for Harmony & Peace, Varanasi, and Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai jointly organized a two-day workshop on 13 and 14 June in Lucknow on the present condition of Muslims, Problems and Islam. The workshop was attended by Muslim scholars, writers, madrasa teachers and Ulema.

Topics discussed at the workshop included educational awareness, social and economic backwardness of Muslims, torture and implication of innocent Muslims in the name of terrorism and low representation of Muslims in Govt. jobs. The workshop also discussed the spread of deliberate misunderstandings about Islam.

Eminent speakers who addressed the workshop included Islamic scholar and writer Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, Shia spiritual leader Kalbe Sadique, MaulanaHifzurRahmanNadwi, Mufti Abu IrfanFirangimahli and Dr. Mohammad Arif, chairman of Centre for Harmony & Peace, Varanasi.

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

3.Article

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

Punishing Innocents

The untold story of Abdul NassarMa’dani’s family…

(

For what sin are they being punished?

(An abridged and independent translation of an article by V.D. Selvaraj published in Kalakaumudi , soon after Ma’dani was released from Coimbatore jail. 2 years after the writing of this article Ma’dani was again arrested leading to much heightened controversies and sharp questions about citizen rights and state sponsored terrorism. Translated By Nada TK, and edited by SatyaSivaraman). (Article circulated by K.P.Sasi ().

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Secular Action Network, July, 2012

Ma’dani with family

‘We have run out of chilly and coriander powder. What will we do tomorrow?’

The man in a ‘baniyan’ and ‘kaili’ (traditional dressing of Muslim men in Kerala) asked the office employee, as he was serving us tea.

“It’s all arranged.” This reply however didn’t seem to satisfy him.

He then turned to us and said, smiling like an old acquaintance,

‘Not one or two.200 stomachs.Should provide daily. Five times a day, not just three. Tea and “vada” at 5 in the morning.Breakfast at 8 AM. At one, it’s time for lunch. Again tea and snacks at 4 in the evening. Dinner at 7. With Allah’s grace, everything is going well’

Must be the canteen manager at the orphanage. It seemed he had no plans to stop.

“Let them have their tea” he left saying this. A silence occupied the room.

This is Anwarssery. A madrasa inKarunaagapallypanchayat of Kollam district. A compound spread over three and a half acres.

This place of AbdunnasarMa’dani has always been at the centre of controversy. However, now it looked calm and peaceful.

We were escorted to the office and provided a seat there.

The table in the room was full of magazines and brochures. One with a picture of V SAchuthanathan (CPM leader and former chief minister) speaking at Anwarssery caught my attention. Seated on the stage were the then ministers M.A. Baby, Premachandran, Divakaran. Ma’dani and his father were present as well.

A footnote to the picture read:

‘Honourable Chief Minister inaugurating the 21st anniversary celebration of Anwarssery.”

The brochure said that the madrasa was started with 50 students on June 22 in 1987.

Ten minutes passed. We were still waiting. After another 15 minutes, a young man came and called us in.

When we were at Ma’dani’s office doorstep a car came and halted in the corridor. Three men hurriedly emerged out of the car and whispered something to the security guard. The guard let them inside and told us in an apologizing tone,

‘A few more minutes. They will return soon.’

While we were waiting, two boys, both in white pyjama and kurta entered the verandah. They didn’t need any introduction.Ma’dani’s kids. The elder one, Omar Mukhtar resembled their father and the younger ,SalahudheenAyyoobi, looked like their mother, Soofiya.

Having seen the boys at home, I asked, “ Is this Christmas holidays time?’

‘No’. Omar was the one who replied.

‘Then? Are you on vacation?’

Omar stood silent. He looked reluctant to speak anymore.

‘They have gone with Amma (mom). So we came back’, Salahudheen replied, visibly disturbed. Soofiya had been taken into custody by the police.

Omar, as if lost in some inexplicable thought stared at distance. What would he be thinking?

Omar was an innocent four year old, clinging on his mother’s fingers, when Madani was arrested on charges of involvement in the Coimbatore bombing.

Salahudheen was just three months then. He has no memories of his Bapa (dad) in jail. The children used to visit their father in jail, in the company of their mother.Ma’dani would stretch his right hand through the bars of his cell and lightly touch his little baby for a few seconds. During a visit, a policeman pulled back Soofiya with Omar in her arms. Omar broke his head in that day’s fall. This incident forced a four-year ban on visitors to AbdunnasarMa’dani in jail.

Omar and Salahudheen grew without enjoying the warmth or a loving touch of their father. They were not just living with it. They were experiencing it.

When Ma’dani was harassed inside, outside the bars his children were punished, even more cruelly.

Which school would give admission to the children of a “terrorist”?

Omar was admitted in a school just a few months after Madani’s arrest. It was Peevee’s School in Nilamboor, owned by Muslim League leader and businessman P V Abdul Wahab. He continued there until Grade 4. None of his friends knew about Omar’s lineage. His friends would crack jokes about Ma’dani, but Omar would keep quiet.Ma’dani’s fate, at that time was a burning topic in Kerala. Later, with a view to providing some isolation, Omar was taken to a school in Mysore. Salahudheen, too, joined him there.

The condition there was pathetic. The school was in a very bad shape. The children were forced to sleep on the floor. Very often they were served the previous day’s food. Bathing was sort of a luxury allowed just once in a week.

An incident made things worse. A Kashmiri was arrested in Mysore. School authorities feared a probe and became restless about the presence of Ma’dani’s kids in the school. They asked Ma’dani to take the children out. Omar and Salahuddin had to return home. The worst was yet to come. Soon after their return, the family was forced to sell their house to meet the expenses of pursuing their father’s case.

Later on they joined a school in Calicut but it didn’t make any difference. Everywhere things turned out the same way. Presently, both are pursuing a Quran course in a Madrasa in Kayamkulam. They are allowed to appear for their annual state school examinations. Accordingly, the elder one is in Grade 8 and the younger in Grade 6.

A phone call I recently received from a friend in the Gulf reverberated in my memory. Can you pinpoint any other children in Kerala who are as isolated as Ma’dani’s kids, he asked. Initially I took it as an emotional outburst of a young leftist. But what he said was a bare truth.

Omar was still silent and gloomy. To change the topic, I asked, “Do you watch films?” “No,” came the answer.

“ What is your favourite subject?” “ English”

“ Do you learn public speaking,” “ Yes,” Both replied together. “But we don’t take part in speech contests outside.”

A big silence followed every brief answer.

“ What do you read other than the Holy Quran?,”

“ I like Vaikom Mohammed Basheer ,” replied Omar.

“ Which novel of Basheer you like the most?”

“ PathummayudeAdu” (Pathumma’s Goat)

“Which part of the novel you find the most interesting?”

“Isn’t the very first line itself so interesting,” replied Omar, with a smile and quoted those lines. That was the only time I saw him smiling.

Omar walked into his father’s room, after saying goodbye to us, with his arms laid on his brother’s shoulders.

An aged man with a torch in his hand entered. Ma’dani’s father, Abdul Samad Master.Age 66.Retiredhead master of Venga V. V. School. He was there to visit the eldest of his seven children.

He narrated to us the story behind Anwarssery.

“The place was known as ‘Pandaravila’ before. It was a remote rural area. The madrasa started working at Anwarssery in 1987. It was the Hindus living in the locality who provided land for the madrasa at very low prices.

PandaravilaRaghavan, well known as Singapore Raghavan was the first to give land. Then Uthaman, Kuttappan. Even today, Ma’dani has warm relations with all these families. Raghavan’s daughter Priya was Ma’dani’s classmate. Just the other day, Priya visited Ma’dani. She burst in to tears seeing the hardships that came over Ma’dani and his family.

Christians also gave land for the madrasa. Merikutty, Yohannan….

“Everyone looks at Anwarssery with great respect. It has always been a part and parcel of their life. No one in this land saw us as terrorists,” said Abdul Samad Master.

‘Anwar’ literally means ‘ ray of light’. The institution is named as Anwarul Islam- Radiance of Islam. It is located in MainagapallyShasthankottaPanchayat of Kollam district. The institution took birth under a thatched roof raised on a small piece of land donated by a man called Azeez Sir. There wasn’t a single madrasa in the whole locality at that time.”

Anwarssery stands not in a Muslim majority area. There are not more than five or six Muslim families in this ward in MainagapallyPanchayat. They too are recent settlers. When Anwar ul Islam was established, there was only one Muslim family in the area. Ma’dani’s father was working with the Islamic CulturalSociety (ICS). He had tried a lot to get approval for a school in the name of that society, but later he turned away from the society due to some differences.

It was his long cherished dream to set up an educational institution for the deprived. It was at this point Azeez Sir, a relative, offered a three cent piece of land. Initially a mosque was set up there and later a school started under thatched roof, with around 40 students. Ma’dani at that time was a student at the school and sort of an organizer.

The narration was cut short as the visitors came out of Ma’dani’s room and we were called in.

Ma’dani was sitting on a large cot with one leg stretched open. He was resting his back against a pillow by the wall. He greeted us with a pleasant smile.

His artificial leg stood behind the cot as a testimony to his lost leg, in a bomb attack five months before the BabriMasjid demolition.

That day’s newspapers were piled on both sides of the bed. A writing pad and a bundle of papers, on his right.

Ma’dani removed his cap exposing a bald head. Combing his graying beard he enquired: “Can you guess my age?”

He answered himself, while we sat silent.

“ 44. Even before the loss of my leg I started losing my hair. May be because of the many hour long speeches I delivered my head would constantly sweat under the cap.”

Saying this, Ma’dani handed over a printed sheet of paper.

“All facts about the Kalamassery incident are there in this paper. There is nothing new from Soofia’s response to the anti-terrorist squad’s questioning. Police officers have spread news that Soofiya has confessed to the charges. There is some drama behind this. I will reveal that later.”

We said our interest was not in the Kalamassery incident. It was about his kids. We need to know what they want to say to the people of Kerala and Ma’dani’s own dreams for them. Before everything else, we would like to know your father’s expectations from you.

Spreading a sheet on his torn-off leg, Ma’dani gave us a smile, pregnant with pain.

“I lost this leg when I was 27. It was in August 1992. I was returning after my evening prayers from a mosque 100 meters away. The Court acquitted all the accused in this case. The day after, Soofiya was arrested. It was I who pleaded to set the culprits free”, he said conflating several incidents all in one go.

It had taken 18 years for the verdict to be delivered in that bombing case.

One should learn about this case to see the human heart beating under the ‘terrorist’s disguise.

Regretting his provocative speeches that led to the bomb attack, Ma’dani said:

“There was fire in my words then. Later I came to realise that it was too much. I knew nothing about the social structure of Kerala.”

The attack happened in August 1992, while I was returning from evening prayers. Those RSS people hiding in the grass threw three bombs. The first one went over my head. The second one exploded destroying my colleague’s hands. It was the third that took my leg. Lots of people returning from the mosque were at the spot. They rushed me to Thiruvananthapuram medical college.

“My father was horrified to see his son coming to the hospital with legs torn apart. He was there since morning with his sister who was admitted for some treatment.

The attack was totally unwarranted. But, the BabriMasjid issue was heating up at that time. Advani’srathyathra intensified the tension. Muslims all over the nation feared that the mosque would be destroyed any moment. I knew my speeches had provoked the RSS people. I formed the ISS (Islamic SevaSangh), conducted rallies and gave speeches demanding the protection of BabriMasjid.

In Bhagalpur, Biharcommunalists had chopped and disposed of people in wells. For days, the air was filled with the cries of those unfortunate people alive in the well. Thirteen year old MalikaBiwi, who somehow survived the cruel ordeal is still alive. There was a report about these incidents at that time. I used to narrate with great emotion these inhumane things going on all around. My speeches were filled with anguish over those incidents in Northern India. It was nothing more than a fiery response against such cruelty.