Yesterday I read a new report which
very openly “blamed” an Indian Muslim preacher and televangelist
Dr.Zakir Naik (President of the Islamic Research Foundation and founder
of Peace TV) for the Bangladesh terrorist attacks!
The charge against this ex-doctor turned televangelist is that he has ‘inspired’ 2 of the 5 youths behind the terrorist attacks. And this indeed is a serious charge!However, the first question that propped up in my mind is what constitutes ‘inspiring’ someone to kill innocent humans. I tried to recollect the last time or in fact ‘any’ time when I heard something from Dr.Naik that could have even remotely inspired someone to kill another human being. I took recourse to twitter to see what was going on and then found that #BanZakirNaik was actually one of the trending topics. There, I found some enthusiastic twitter handles – a good number of them wearing saffron half pants, pasting links to some of Dr.Naik’s video snippets. When I looked at those, I was quite amused at the amount of blindness that hate can cause. Some of the videos were picked out of context while the memes were just putting words into Dr.Naik’s mouth.
I was pretty sure that this is not the Dr.Naik I know (Note: I don’t know him personally but have attended a public programme of his almost a decade back). So I tried to find some of his speeches or articles on the subject. Here is an article that Dr.Naik himself wrote.
Yes, as you can see the title of the article (if you have cared to open it in another tab) can be misleading but the article itself is more of an answer that Muslims are usually asked and the question goes this way: “Why are many of the Muslims fundamentalists and terrorists?”. [Just in case, if some of you still have doubts… Yes, ‘some’ (not all) of us do get asked such questions.] Dr. Naik then goes on to show how the word ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘terrorist’ can be played with. The most noticeable thing he says is this:
Every Muslim should be a terrorist. A terrorist is a person who causes terror. The moment a robber sees a policeman he is terrified. A policeman is a terrorist for the robber. Similarly every Muslim should be a terrorist to the anti-social elements of society, such as thieves, dacoits and rapists. Whenever such an anti-social element sees a Muslim, he should be terrified. It is true that the word ‘terrorist’ is generally used for a person who causes terror among the common people. But a true Muslim should only be a terrorist to selective people i.e. anti-social elements, and not to the common innocent people. In fact a Muslim should be a source of peace for innocent people.
Now, I am not sure how someone reading the above passage (the assumption is that s/he understands English) can infer that this is triggering any sort of violence against the people of other faiths. In fact, the last couple of statements seem to exhort Muslims to be a source of peace for innocent people. Moreover, the word “terrorist” has very clearly been Not used in the way we usually employ it (and this has been pointed above too).
In all honesty, I feel it is below my ‘intellectual’ capacity to actually give more examples of how silly, vicious and hollow the allegations against Dr.Naik are. I would have loved to see a hashtag like #DebateWithZakirNaik or #EngageWithZakirNaik or #ToughQuestionsToZakirNaik. This would be more in line with the rich argumentative history of the Indian Intellectual tradition. On a personal level, even I do have a bone or two to pick with Dr.Naik. However, they do not even get close to the kind of fantastic, ridiculous allegations that are being spread against him.
The writer of this article is not worried about a particular Dr.Naik. Nor is it the purpose of this article to absolve someone from an allegation. The sole reason behind putting this piece together is to show how the right-fringe has been using this issue to further its cause and sow communal discord amongst the citizens. What bothers me the most is how come we Indians have started to further this whole ‘Ban XYZ’ movement. We used to be harbingers of ‘Tarq’(Hindi word for Reasoning and Debate) . The kings used to take pride in the ministers who had specialization in logic and reasoning. All we now know is to troll people we dislike or disagree with or (as seen in this case and several others prior to this) call for a BAN. The other thing that pains the writer is the deep rooted malaise in the Indian media and its functioning. How can a news house or a journalist report that a preacher ‘inspired’ some men to kill others just because they had listened to him or say, followed him on twitter. This shows an utter lack of commitment to the journalistic principles. It’s time for everyone involved in this profession to do some serious introspection.
On a final note, I wish we Indians develop a more nuanced approach and debate with people, disagree with them – even vehemently, yell at them (we can take classes from Mr.Arnab Goswami if required in this regard) and even not see eye to eye with someone. But calling for a ban against an Indian who has been wrongly blamed for a terrorist attack in another country is just so un-Indian and against the principles that make a modern intellectual mind.
The charge against this ex-doctor turned televangelist is that he has ‘inspired’ 2 of the 5 youths behind the terrorist attacks. And this indeed is a serious charge!However, the first question that propped up in my mind is what constitutes ‘inspiring’ someone to kill innocent humans. I tried to recollect the last time or in fact ‘any’ time when I heard something from Dr.Naik that could have even remotely inspired someone to kill another human being. I took recourse to twitter to see what was going on and then found that #BanZakirNaik was actually one of the trending topics. There, I found some enthusiastic twitter handles – a good number of them wearing saffron half pants, pasting links to some of Dr.Naik’s video snippets. When I looked at those, I was quite amused at the amount of blindness that hate can cause. Some of the videos were picked out of context while the memes were just putting words into Dr.Naik’s mouth.
I was pretty sure that this is not the Dr.Naik I know (Note: I don’t know him personally but have attended a public programme of his almost a decade back). So I tried to find some of his speeches or articles on the subject. Here is an article that Dr.Naik himself wrote.
Yes, as you can see the title of the article (if you have cared to open it in another tab) can be misleading but the article itself is more of an answer that Muslims are usually asked and the question goes this way: “Why are many of the Muslims fundamentalists and terrorists?”. [Just in case, if some of you still have doubts… Yes, ‘some’ (not all) of us do get asked such questions.] Dr. Naik then goes on to show how the word ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘terrorist’ can be played with. The most noticeable thing he says is this:
Every Muslim should be a terrorist. A terrorist is a person who causes terror. The moment a robber sees a policeman he is terrified. A policeman is a terrorist for the robber. Similarly every Muslim should be a terrorist to the anti-social elements of society, such as thieves, dacoits and rapists. Whenever such an anti-social element sees a Muslim, he should be terrified. It is true that the word ‘terrorist’ is generally used for a person who causes terror among the common people. But a true Muslim should only be a terrorist to selective people i.e. anti-social elements, and not to the common innocent people. In fact a Muslim should be a source of peace for innocent people.
Now, I am not sure how someone reading the above passage (the assumption is that s/he understands English) can infer that this is triggering any sort of violence against the people of other faiths. In fact, the last couple of statements seem to exhort Muslims to be a source of peace for innocent people. Moreover, the word “terrorist” has very clearly been Not used in the way we usually employ it (and this has been pointed above too).
In all honesty, I feel it is below my ‘intellectual’ capacity to actually give more examples of how silly, vicious and hollow the allegations against Dr.Naik are. I would have loved to see a hashtag like #DebateWithZakirNaik or #EngageWithZakirNaik or #ToughQuestionsToZakirNaik. This would be more in line with the rich argumentative history of the Indian Intellectual tradition. On a personal level, even I do have a bone or two to pick with Dr.Naik. However, they do not even get close to the kind of fantastic, ridiculous allegations that are being spread against him.
The writer of this article is not worried about a particular Dr.Naik. Nor is it the purpose of this article to absolve someone from an allegation. The sole reason behind putting this piece together is to show how the right-fringe has been using this issue to further its cause and sow communal discord amongst the citizens. What bothers me the most is how come we Indians have started to further this whole ‘Ban XYZ’ movement. We used to be harbingers of ‘Tarq’(Hindi word for Reasoning and Debate) . The kings used to take pride in the ministers who had specialization in logic and reasoning. All we now know is to troll people we dislike or disagree with or (as seen in this case and several others prior to this) call for a BAN. The other thing that pains the writer is the deep rooted malaise in the Indian media and its functioning. How can a news house or a journalist report that a preacher ‘inspired’ some men to kill others just because they had listened to him or say, followed him on twitter. This shows an utter lack of commitment to the journalistic principles. It’s time for everyone involved in this profession to do some serious introspection.
On a final note, I wish we Indians develop a more nuanced approach and debate with people, disagree with them – even vehemently, yell at them (we can take classes from Mr.Arnab Goswami if required in this regard) and even not see eye to eye with someone. But calling for a ban against an Indian who has been wrongly blamed for a terrorist attack in another country is just so un-Indian and against the principles that make a modern intellectual mind.
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