Sermon monitoring and pulpit politics

It’s Friday, November 29, and almost time for the weekly afternoon prayer. Jumma prayersHaji Lal Mohammed, an elderly man dressed in white kurta-pajama, with a long white beard and a cap, stands outside one of the many shops on the busy road outside Raipur’s Ashraful Aulia Mosque, the largest mosque in Chhattisgarh . All around him in Maudhapara, a predominantly Muslim area in the heart of the state capital, people are rushing to the mosque at the last minute. The residents of Maudhapara are mostly descendants of migrants from Uttar Pradesh.

Mohammed has stopped by to join the conversation about this takreer (Pre-prayer sermon) and a recent order of the State Waqf Board around it. “cover If you have come to do this then listen carefully (If you’ve come to cover this, listen carefully),” he begins, raising his voice just so it doesn’t have to compete with the rumble and static rumble of passing vehicles. takreer Is coming out of the speakers. “Have you heard anything controversial in the last half hour takreerhe says, his voice full of emotion. Mohammad says, “At least in Chhattisgarh, our mosques are not the center of politics that such an order was necessary.”

The order he referred to was issued by the state Waqf Board on November 18. It directs all mosques across the state to submit the content of their Friday sermons to be checked by the board to prevent political comments. order, address Mutawalli (caretakers) and mosque committee officials, stipulate that the imam can raise any religious topic in his Friday sermons. To include any other topic, “permission will be required from Chhattisgarh State Waqf Board.” Permission can be sought through the Board’s WhatsApp group and written correspondence.

waqf rules

State Waqf Board Chairman Salim Raj is firm. He has a relationship spanning over three decades with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – which currently runs the government at the Center and the state – and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological parent that highlights the issue of Hindutva. . , “Thousands of people who gather in mosques for Friday prayers and sermons are affected. We have seen incidents of stone pelting after such sermons in Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. This disturbs communal harmony and we will not tolerate it,” says Raj.

Chhattisgarh is the first state to issue such an order, which comes in the backdrop of the ongoing debate over the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, introduced in the Lok Sabha by the central government on August 8. The Waqf Council and State Waqf Boards also include non-Muslim members, among other features. Waqf is property donated by Muslims for religious or charitable purposes such as the establishment of mosques, hospitals or educational institutions. Raj says he has seen more than 20 videos of speeches in mosques in which “tyrannical government (The tyrannical government)” in Chhattisgarh in the last five to six months has been motivating them to take such action.

The latest order has faced criticism from the opposition Congress and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi, who in a post on Twitter called it a violation of religious freedom under Article 25 of the Constitution.

Raj disagrees. “This is not the issue. We have kept Maulanas And the Imam should stay away from it. We have only included Mutawalli Because we have rights over them,” he says. However, only Maulanas Or the Imam is entitled to give religious sermons mutawalli To follow announcements related to the management or maintenance of mosques. Raj says in the video, he found Mutawalli He is giving a speech.

The office of State Waqf Board is in front of Raipur Collectorate. Raj, who took over as Speaker in October following a no-confidence motion against his predecessor, turns the pages of a book titled Waqf Act, 1995Between dealing with visitors and going through files and media reports, he points out provisions related to the power of the Speaker.

“I am not here just to enjoy the powers that be and get my salary. I have a thriving business – a steel plant – and I can make a lot of money,” he says. Raj claims that since taking charge, he has filed 25 FIRs against various staff members for alleged violations, such as misusing funds or not demolishing mosques for not paying money to the board. He claims that this is the first time that a president is using these powers.

There are 3,800-4,000 mosques in Chhattisgarh, but only 355 of them are registered with the board, according to Raj, who says any place where prayers are offered “automatically comes under the purview of the board and hence This order is binding on them.”

establish a narrative

November 29 was the first Friday when the speeches were reviewed. As of the previous day, about 150 mosque committees had sent the proposed content of their speeches to the board; None of them were found to be “insensitive”. However, Ashraful Aulia Mosque was not one of them.

After Friday prayers, 68 year old Ismail Ghafoor… mutawalli The condition of the mosque remains poor since July 2023. “We do not need permission to carry out our regular activities. I have not seen the order, but have come to know about it through the press and I think it is not binding,” he says.

Others also feel that Raj has overstated his point. Salam Rizvi, who was at the helm of the state Waqf Board from 2019 to 2020, says while the law does not permit issuing such an order, the board can issue guidelines from time to time. He says that these guidelines are not binding on mosque management committees.

Ismail Ghafoor, caretaker of Ashraful Aulia Mosque. , Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

“There is no religious sanction for making any inflammatory speech or dealing with any subject beyond the Quran or Hadith (teachings of the Prophet’s life). The community itself does not like it. There were no prevailing circumstances to issue such an order,” says Rizvi.

In response to Owaisi’s comment on Ax, Chief Minister Vishnudev Sai’s media advisor Pankaj Jha supported the decision and distanced the government from it, saying that the members of the State Waqf Board were appointed by the previous Congress government.

Congress spokesperson Sushil Anand Shukla and Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) president Amit Jogi point out that the order should not be seen in isolation and is “the latest chapter in the broader story of targeting of Muslims by the BJP and the RSS.” ,

The order comes days after violence broke out at the royal Jama Masjid in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal during a survey to find out whether it was built over a temple. Around the same time, a claim about a temple beneath the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, Rajasthan, surfaced, with a local court giving time to the Sufi dargah management to respond.

“There is definitely a common national thread, whether it is the issue of Waqf or the issue of ‘ghuspaithias (Infiltrators)’ which was raised by BJP during our rule (till 2023). If infiltration is taking place, what has the state government done to stop it and is it not a failure of the Centre?” Shukla says.

Muslims constituted 2.01% of the population of Chhattisgarh in the 2011 census. According to data obtained indirectly from a political strategy and consultancy agency, this number was a little over 2.1% at the time of the 2023 assembly elections.

The most widely accepted narrative among historians and researchers studying early Muslim migration to the state identifies three phases: the medieval period when the nobility arrived, whose descendants became landowners in some areas; Sufi saint of the 19th century, evidenced by the religious sites of Raipur and Bilaspur; and traders, including Gujarati traders, who came to exploit forest resources under new contracts during the British occupation.

Post-independence migration was linked to mining and industrialization and the region’s strategic location along the Bombay-Howrah rail and road routes, although these developments attracted people of all religions. The last migration in the last few decades was by workers employed in local enterprises.

These are the same people whom BJP accuses of being ‘infiltrators’. Last September, ahead of the assembly elections, BJP MP Brijmohan Aggarwal had alleged that the previous Bhupesh Baghel government talked about Chhattisgarhia pride but was “responsible for the settlement of Rohingya and Bangladeshi Muslims in the state”.

a widening chasm

Politically, Muslims influence a handful of urban seats in the state assembly. One of them is Raipur South where by-elections were held recently, which the BJP won.

Jogi alleges that BJP instigates sentiments in these areas. He cites the example of the 2021 Kawardha communal violence when two communities had a dispute over hoisting of saffron and green flags; And the Bemetara incident of 2023 when a clash between two teenagers escalated.

In the subsequent assembly elections, the father of the Hindu youth who was killed in Saja assembly constituency of Bemetara contested as a BJP candidate and won. Mohammad Akbar, the only Muslim MLA and minister in the previous regime, also lost from Kawardha in the elections. Akbar attributed his defeat to alleged misinformation that Rohingyas were settling in Kawardha. He challenged the BJP to prove the presence of even a single Rohingya.

“Till a few years ago, such things were unheard of in Chhattisgarh. Controversial statements about Akbar were made by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. The state Waqf Board order is in line with this policy,” says Jogi.

Jogi, like some sections within the Congress, accuses the previous party-led government of “promoting soft Hindutva” and points out that even after losing the election, the Congress “deliberately kept Akbar out of the Lok Sabha election campaign in Rajnandgaon”. kept”. Where Baghel unsuccessfully contested the elections.

“Muslims face isolation and do not see anyone raising their voice for them,” says a Congress source.

Home Minister Vijay Sharma and BJP state leadership did not react on this. Hindu’s Question on issue.

Meanwhile, according to the RSS website, Rizvi, the former co-convenor of the RSS’s Muslim Rashtriya Manch, formed to “bridge the growing gap between the Hindu and Muslim communities in India”, says the RSS is not against Muslims. “I joined the BJP in 1991 and faced opposition from the community as well as my family, but I continued with conviction,” he says. The following year, an extremist Hindu mob lynched him. Babri Masjid was destroyed in Ayodhya.

Minutes after the noise of Friday prayers at the Ashraful Aulia Mosque subsides, Syed Roshan Ali, 36, a seller of second-hand vehicles, walks to the graveyard behind the mosque to pay homage to his ancestors. As he passes through the crowd, he buys rose petals.

Against the scent of flowers filling the air sweetly, Ali says sharply, “No controversial thing has ever been said from this mosque, but I can share videos of controversial things said about Muslims from other places Am.” Is anyone taking action against him?”