Opinion Accountable also to man

The recent high-profile conversion-to-marry of Haryana Deputy CM Chander Mohan (Chand Mohammad) and Haryana Assistant Advocate-General Anuradha Bali (Fiza Mohammad) seems to have served as the immediate cause behind this recommendation. It attracted scathing criticism from the clergy. Urdu newspapers widely covered the leading ulema’s bitter opposition. Worse,Professor Syed Tahir Mahmood,the sole full-time member of the commission,found himself under fire as some of the clergy named him in their comments.

The whole episode holds up a mirror to the tension that prevails between secular and religious laws within Muslim society. Though a common Muslim tends to be practical in his engagement with such tension,the ulema as a class are reactionary in their response to any non-ulema intervention in the Muslim Personal Law. I am convinced of the relativity of categories like “reactionary”; however,any uninformed response to an issue of social concern is no less problematic as well. The ulema’s critique of the Law Commission’s recommendation betrays that a few of them have taken the pains to go through the text of the report.

Moreover,what Prof Mahmood takes to be the “apprehensions” of the ulema was in reality their intellectual arrogance,gestures questioning his competence and credibility when it comes to suggesting any policy regarding the Muslim Personal Law,hitherto their preserve. Hence,even though it has been clarified that Muslim law on bigamy — or the state of bigamy among Indian Muslims — was not the issue,a Mumbai-based cleric issued a fatwa of kufr against him.

The agenda of a government,even a democratically elected one,does not necessarily coincide with that of its citizens. The controversial recommendation of the Law Commission however is a situation where a government body seeks to address a genuine concern of the Indian people. Ironically,the ulema,whose own legitimacy to critique government intervention into Muslim personal law rests solely on their claim to represent Muslim citizens’ religious concerns,fail to appreciate even such a recommendation.

I am not against the idea of accountability of government officials and intellectuals before citizens. But I am also for the accountability of the religious class before the Indian masses. Just as government servants are paid out of taxpayer money,the ulema are dependent for their bread-and-butter on religious taxes and alms from believers. Is it too much then to expect the ulema to help in addressing social problems through law?

Being part of a liberal democratic political system requires the ulema to re-interpret its obligations towards society at large. Contributing its due to the realisation of Indian society’s greater common good must be among its priorities. In a country which celebrates electoral democracy through universal adult suffrage,the religious class’s accountability to the Supreme Being must be mediated by its immediate answerability to the common man. Such a reading of its religious duties demands of the clergy,especially of those who raised such an unnecessary hue-and-cry in this case,that they widen the scope of their duties beyond the numerical consideration of a particular religious group into a more accommodating and humanistic enterprise.

Writing of the ulema in 1946 in Modern Islam in India,W.C. Smith described them as “politically progressive” but “socially conservative”. This observation of Smith holds true even after more than 60 years. Unless the ulema redefine their locus of accountability and scope of religious duties,the common Muslim (men) like that Mumbai taxi-driver,will continue to demand adjustments to the Muslim Personal Law according to the needs of a complex capitalist social reality. If the ulema cannot initiate such a project,then they have to cooperate with the legal system of India as it does.

The writer is a New Delhi-based documentary filmmaker and writer who has been educated at Jamia Salafia Madrasa,Varanasi,and Jamia Millia Islamia

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