In1998, I met a young Muslim from Uttar Pradesh who got me an interview with a top cop in Delhi for a story on the legal and human rights violations of alleged criminals in police custody. The cop was also a Muslim, who spoke clinically and candidly about the torture tactics that the police learn and execute. Describing it as a “professional hazard”, he said, there was not much else the police could do to extract things out of criminals.
The cop had an equally matter-of-fact view about the generally heated up Hindu-Muslim conflict over the demolished Babri masjid, the bomb blast violence by Muslim terrorists in its wake and the reprisal killings of Muslims by the Shiv Sena-led mobs in the aftermath. Even though all of that had happened more than five years before my meeting with the Delhi police officer, the discussions about it had not ceased in the Muslim circles, especially because the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that had led the Ram Janam Bhoomi movement, had, surprisingly, come to power at the centre that year.
The young Muslim talked breathlessly about the general politics and how it impacted Muslims. He said that both the right and left wings were anti-Muslim. “How can we forget that the leftists are the first ones to have stopped the azan in West Bengal?” He resented the withdrawal of “a minor concession” that was azan, and said it had been done by the left government “out of political spite.” The cop, knowing the law, dismissed his view and said there was no point in interpreting every issue politically or to be sentimental over it.
He was so right.
It is the sentiment over azan that has bought things to an eyeball-to eyeball situation in Maharashtra between the Shiv Sena-led government and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, who has repeatedly said that he is not opposing azan on religious, but social grounds. To oppose him is to cause avoidable political and communal trouble. Sometimes, it is more important to pay heed to what is being said rather than who is saying it. And whatever is being said is quite reasonable.
The blaring loud speakers cause a lot of trouble to the people in the vicinity of these places, including students and patients. Faith should be a private matter, not something to disturb other people about. I remember a Tamil brahmin friend of mine getting extremely irritated by the early morning azan around her home on the outskirts of Chennai, where she went during the summer vacation. That was way back in 1988. She is a lawyer by profession, had nothing against Muslims or Islam, but found azan “intolerable”. That was a time when Muslims had no qualms about squatting on railway platforms and in trains to do namaz. Doing such things and causing inconvenience to the general public is not only disagreeable and irrational, but also brings ridicule to the practitioners and their faith.
Removing loud speakers and bringing down their pitch are an open-and-shut case of following the law. No reasonable person from the Muslim community would resent the move. When the government executes the law on this with firmness and fairness, as the government in Uttar Pradesh has done, there is no fuss and no injury to anyone’s sentiments. More than 1,14, 000 loud speakers, installed illegally, are reported to have been removed from all religious places by the Yogi Adityanath government. More are being removed. The sheer number should tell us the noise pollution that would have been caused by these mikes. Unknown to politicians, millions of people, including Muslims, may be thankful to the government for taking this step. All state governments should follow suit, more importantly, against all violators, be it mosques, temples or gurdwaras.
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