Insiders, Outsiders, Muslims

The Narendra Modi government, which arguably orchestrated the worst acts of organised crime against the Muslim community in India, has been credited for some time now with the spread of unprecedented prosperity in Gujarat. The state’s economic indices reflect this: Gujarat is growing at least one and a half times faster than the rest of India.

This poses a peculiar problem for Muslims, especially those who live in Gujarat. The problem is as follows: if a Muslim happens to bring up Narendra Modi’s name in any way that is not unambiguously derisive, he is in big trouble.

Maulana Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi, the recently elected vice-chancellor of the Darul Uloom in Deoband, may be forced to step down within weeks of taking over because he left room for interpretation in his remarks about Narendra Modi. (He had said that development was taking place in Gujarat, to the general benefit of all communities; he had rated Modi’s performance as chief minister at five on a scale of 10. Naturally, he was a Hindu right-wing plant who would, no doubt, turn Deoband into an idolatry-promoting gurukul.)

Vastanvi is seen as a reformist, someone keen to go beyond religious education. A man with the potential to change the image of Deoband which, to the average Hindu, appears to be some kind of fatwa factory. In his home state, he not only heads a madrassa with 15,000 students, he is the driving force behind a number of mainstream educational institutions that offer degrees in everything from engineering to unani medicine. Reading the list of colleges he heads, you get the impression that he is an education magnate of not inconsiderable stature. Running a smallish empire in Modi’s Gujarat.

And that is the problem. Indian Muslims, look to Deoband for all kinds of direction. The Darul Uloom vice-chancellor’s job is the most consequential education job in India. The institution is perceived as one that guides and mirrors the mood of every seventh Indian. And even that is only part of its pale of influence, which stretches well beyond India’s borders.

Maulana Vastanvi made the mistake, I believe, of reflecting his own success within the Modi system. He could, having thrived in that system, argue that it is for the Muslims within to decide what Modi has brought to Gujarat apart from bloodshed and bigotry. He isn’t the first cleric to do so.

Mufti Shabbir Ahmad Siddiqui, imam of Ahmedabad’s biggest mosque, the Jama Masjid, has gone further than Vastanvi on several occasions. Siddiqui is from Bihar, but has lived in Gujarat since the early 80s. He has said that Muslims in Gujarat have to move on from the riots. That Islam has “befriended bigger fundamentalists” than Modi who at least has the additional qualification of being a “benevolent and prudent manager.”

Siddiqui and Vastanvi show how the Muslim community is slicing itself up in India. In Gujarat specifically, there is well-known Shia support for Modi. In fact, the Ahmedabad imam has said he would like to see more Sunni appreciation for Modi’s work.

Outside, in the dominant Sunni world guided by Deoband, clear regional divisions are emerging. Muslims from north Indian states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar formed a ‘union’ overnight, with the sole mission of ousting the vice-chancellor. They saw him not just as a traitor to the collective cause of Indian Muslims but perhaps, more importantly, as an ‘outsider’.

Students from other parts of the country stood by through the agitation, trying to appear neutral. In the environment that has now been created, they will find it increasingly difficult to stay that way.

And guess who wins when Muslims get divided...

Published in The Express Tribune, February 10^th, 2011.