In the last two issues we published the first two parts of the interview with Ameer (President) Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Syed Sadatullah Husaini conducted by Mrs. Rahmathunnissa, Secretary JIH. The first part of the interview (Issue No. 14) focusses on his personal life, his childhood, upbringing, parents, schooling, education, study and speech planning, time management, healthcare, and how he came close to the Tehreek, etc. while the second part (Issue No. 15) concentrates on the policy, mission and programmes of the 4-year term plan, what is new in this term plan and how the targets can be achieved, etc. In this issue we are publishing the concluding part of the interview, in which JIH President tells us why it is important for Tehreek to engage more and more women and youth in its fold, and throws light on the role of SIO, GIO, publishing houses, the community at large and the civil society, as well as on the importance of team building.
RN: We can probably say that JIH is the only Muslim organisation in India which tried to involve women also in all activities right from the beginning and during the last meeqat we have heard you telling everyone that for the expansion and strengthening of the movement, the shortcut is to work among women because of their influence in the whole family. At the same time, because you said that we need to activate the entire community, even now one main challenge is to get women involved in these kinds of activities. It is not always because people don’t want to but the entire social scenario is such that it is not at all female friendly – the social atmosphere, the work culture, etc. in different organisations. What are your plans and what do you perceive as an action plan to involve more and more women to utilise their talent and potential from within the Tehreek and from the community as well?
AJ: We should work among women, number one. That is very important. The strength of our women cadre should increase. The strength of women among our leadership positions, advisory bodies, working groups – everywhere women workforce should increase. We should seriously work for that purpose because now women have huge potential and even among Muslims now, they are more educated, very active and ambitious. If we utilise their potential and strength, our work can increase manyfold. That is why I have been saying that it is a shortcut to achieve the targets of expansion and consolidation. Women would respond to you much more generously than men have been responding.
Number two, we should try to tackle the stereotypes and the misbeliefs that still exist in our community with regard to women. Islam has given women a very respectable position. It has given fullest freedom to them; it has given them all their rights – maximum rights. We should also try to give our women all those rights and freedom. In the golden periods of Islamic history, women had been at the forefront of all activities whether it is education, economic activities, social engagement. Everywhere women played a leading role. Because of the influence of different cultures, that tradition could not remain in our society. Many stereotypes and misbeliefs got a place in our society and due to that the role of women got minimised. So, unless those stereotypes and misbeliefs are challenged, obviously you cannot utilise the women force completely.
Alhamdulillah, JIH has always been doing this. We have been reminding people on what rights women have and how we should practise Islam with regard to women. That work should continue. Now that awareness is happening, if we do it rightly, we can have a very good women workforce. It would be very effective in bringing the kind of change that we envisage. This is important because women do not have the kind of vested interest or political interest that normally men have. Still, they are more innocent and truer to their beliefs. So, if we convince them about the truth of Islamic teachings, about the right teachings and right opinions, they can easily get convinced and they can change the overall public opinion also.
RN:Likewise, another slogan we had in the last meeqat was ‘younger Jamaat’. As far as I understand, it has two implications. One, the people who are old should try to update their knowledge and skills so that the generation gap will be as less as possible and they will be able to continue contributing, facing new challenges, understanding new trends, and also communicating more effectively with the new generation. Secondly, it means to include more and more young people in our workforce and cadre. Together, the whole Jamaat becomes youthful. What does the new policy say in this regard? Will Jamaat continue with the efforts started in the last meeqat to include more young people? Also, what are your plans to make the entire cadre youthful?
AJ: Yea, that work should continue. Still our workforce is not fully reflective of the dynamics of the population. The kind of age breakup we have in the population is not in sync with that. What I mean by younger Jamaat is the age breakup should reflect the pattern of our general society. In general,the society in India, around two-thirds of the population is below 35 years of age. If we take just adult population, at least around 50% are below 35. That is the trend in general population.
But in Jamaat it is not there. Still, in almost every unit, there are very few young people who comprise our Arkan or Karkun strength. Normally, very old people are much more in number. So, unless our cadre becomes in sync with population, we cannot influence the whole society. So, we should increase young people in our cadre.
Number two, in any growing movement the number of young people should be more. I always give the example of a typical family. In any typical family, there is one grandmother and grandfather. So, the first generation is made up of only 2 persons. The second generation comprises 6 to 8 persons as daughters, sons, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law. Grandchildren might be 12 to 16. So as the generation becomes younger, the number increases. That is the pattern in any growing country or society. So, any growing movement should also reflect that pattern.
The representation of younger people should increase. It should reflect that you are a growing movement, you are influencing the new generation. It does not mean that older people are not important. Obviously, it will happen through older people only. They become a source of strength and inspiration for younger people. They will groom and prepare younger generation. That is how it will happen. So, I think that slogan is still relevant and we need to work a lot to bring young population into our fold and make our movement more youth friendly and we should be able to incorporate maximum young men and women in our ranks and files.
RN: So, it means it is there in the new policy and programme also?
AJ: Yes, it’s there. This time we have given target in the new policy and programme that at least 30% of the new entries to our cadre should be below 40.
RN: Now, coming to our student organisations: SIO and GIO. During the last meeqat we established National Federation of GIO and in most of the zones GIO is very active and we could witness a fast growth. SIO is also getting strengthened and expanded. We see representation from different parts of the country in the central advisory committee of SIO. It shows that it is widening. What are your expectations from them in achieving the mission of the new term?
AJ: These organisations are independent organisations. They have their own policies and programmes and they formulate their own plans. We give them that kind of freedom. Through right freedom only they get groomed for future roles. So, whatever we plan is not binding on them. But we believe that they are also inspired by the main vision and the meeqati mission.
Changing public opinion as a mission is relevant for them,too. The main work of our SIO and GIO boys and girls is also related to this. We expect they also work on these lines among boys and girls of different communities, try to communicate to them the real teachings of Islam, to remove their misunderstandings, to bring them together and work together for a better atmosphere of peace and justice in the country. This should be taken to the level of the youth.
We have also decided in the policy and programme to engage with people of different strata and forums through interfaith dialogues, engagements and civil society activism and make joint efforts for improving the situation in the country.
We have formed forums for intellectuals. For religious leaders, forums like Dharmic Jan Morcha are working. Similarly, at grassroots level we have started Sadbhavana Manch. In this term we want to extend these activities among young people. We will have such kinds of forums for young boys and girls. We would like SIO and GIO to support us in these efforts and enable us to take this work to the youth also.
RN: Right from the beginning, in order to educate and communicate the message to the public, a lot of publishing houses are being established directly by JIH or by individuals associated with JIH. There are many periodicals, magazines, etc. published with the initiative of our cadre. Other media activities are also there. Are you actually satisfied with the existing publication systems and media activism or that based on the mission that the meeqat has taken up?Do you want to bring changes? What can we expect in this field?
AJ: These publications are run by independent organisations, trusts and societies. Every publication is not fully part of Jamaat or Jamaat’s wings. But definitely we would like to influence every publication – not only the publications which are run by the trusts and societies in which Jamaat members and cadre are members but general mainstream publications also and make them speak the truth to the public. That should definitely happen.
Whatever publications are being run by these societies and trusts where Jamaat people are also there, we are not fully satisfied. They need to do a lot of work to improve their standards. In many states the reach of the publications is very limited. Similarly, the electronic and visual communications scenario is still very weak. We need to do a lot to improve these things. So, in this term we have decided to strengthen our media department.
Many young and professional people have joined our media department. In Sha Allah, through them we would try to support the media trusts and societies of these publications and also mainstream publications. And we would try to utilise these platforms for more effective communication.
RN:Iqamat-i-Deen, as you have already hinted, is not an obligation on Jamaat-e-Islami Hind alone. It is the compulsory duty of every believer. But with regard to the present situation of the Muslim community, we still have miles to go. The coordination and unity of the Millat and strengthening common Muslim platforms are all very essential. You are also the Vice President of All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Are these platforms enough?Or, do you think we need to have more?And through these platforms, do you think we will be able to challenge the existing narratives and change the public opinion positively towards Islam? What are the expectations and plans in this regard?
AJ: These platforms have limited scope and limited objectives. AIMPLB is concerned with only about personal law. Its main domain is confined to personal law related issues only. So, we cannot expect that these platforms will work for the entire mission of changing public opinion. They would work in their respective domains and we are part of that in those domains.
But, as for the meeqati mission, the comprehensive work of impacting public opinion with regard to every aspect of Islamic teachings, it has to be initiated by Jamaat, our cadre, our workers and they should influence general Muslims and make them realise the importance of this work and make use of their energies and their resources for this particular work. We should try to make them realise that this is their responsibility as Muslims and they need to play a role in it. The kind of situation that we face now is an opportunity to make the Ummah realise this responsibility. We cannot rely on such united forums as they work on very focused and limited domains.
RN: With regard to the civil society, rather the Hindustani Samaj, the countrymen as such, the main focus is on bringing peace and justice in the country. The cadre will work for that. But at the same time there is so much collective effort even from the government’s side to isolate other communities from Muslims. How will Jamaat ensure the coordination of the civil society and how each cadre and each unit should work in the field to ensure that we are getting engaged with our ‘Brathrane Watan’. How can they do that in this kind of hostile situation?
AJ: For this, the most important thing is to have maximum connections and engagements with our non-Muslim brothers and sisters. We should not remain confined to our ghettos. Ghettoisation happens through many ways. One is physical. You make your own colonies and start living in isolated areas, having no connection with general population. But more dangerous ghettoisation is the mental ghettoisation.
Your contacts, engagements, interests, concerns, activities, participation, everything confines just to the community. You no longer remain concerned with the problems and issues of general society or the whole country. If we do this, we will definitely strengthen the agenda of polarisation by communal forces who want to divide people and who want the Muslim society to be confined to their own security related and identity related issues, and don’t want Muslims to become part of the mainstream and play a role in shaping the scenario of the whole country. We should not do this. For this, the most important thing that is necessary is to have maximum connections.
Secondly, you should involve our non-Muslim brothers and sisters in our problems. We should not fight it alone. We should involve and engage with civil society organisations and work together unitedly for our rights, for establishing justice and equity in the country.
Thirdly, we should not remain confined to our own problems. We should take interest in the problems of the general society. Inequality is the problem of the whole country. Economic injustice, caste exploitation, gender inequality and exploitation of women are all problems of the whole country and they are our problems. We should promote fellow feeling and start working to solve these problems also.
With that your engagement in general society will strengthen and other people will come for your support. In that way only you can tackle the attempts of communalisation and polarisation. I think at all these levels not only the cadre but we should make the entire Ummah work.
RN: In order to implement the programme and our term plan, we need a team. Team building is one of our major tasks. What changes can we expect at Markaz level and what do you ask the zones to do in building the team and developing the team. Both are important, right?
AJ: Yes. At Markaz level we have already announced our team. Alhamdulillah, it is a combination of different talents, we have people of every field within our team from 70 years to 30 years people of every age are there. Similarly, people of different expertise, specialisations, different educational backgrounds, different knowledge backgrounds are also part of our team. We expect similar team building at state and unit levels. We should have the wisdom of our elders and also the energy of our youngsters combined. Our team should have both senior people and young and energetic people. We should have people well trained in our ideology and ethical values. We should also have people trained in sophisticated working methods of contemporary times. We should be able to utilise modern tools and techniques. So, such combination should be there. At Markaz also, we tried this and we expect the same at zonal and unit levels.
RN: To conclude, you have already mentioned this. But I think you should elaborate upon this. The meeqati programme says that it is the task of each and every individual. So, each one has to feel that this is his/her responsibility. So, in order to prepare oneself, I think one has to unlearn many things and get rid of the routines we have habituated with and now we to have learn new things to get ourselves habituated to new ways of working to come out of our own limiting beliefs and negative thoughts. All these are very important, right? So, what advice do you want to give our cadre especially and the Ummah at large to make ourselves feel confident that “Yes, this is our mission and we can do it and we will do it.”?
AJ: Yes. The most important strength of every Muslim is the faith and iman in Allah. So, we should strengthen our faith. It is not the utterance of certain statements. But faith is something which changes your whole attitude, your mindset. It is your way of thinking. It changes your belief system and the whole unconscious system. So, unless faith becomes stable and a living reality, it is irrelevant. So, I think faith in Allah should make us fearless. It should make us very positive minded, self-confident and it should also make us very dynamic and vibrant. So, all these things are part of the faith of a Muslim. That is number one.
Secondly, we are living in a very fast moving and fast changing world. So, learning, unlearning and relearning is important for every individual but for those who are engaged in any ideological work related to bringing a change in society, their attitude of learning, unlearning and relearning is very relevant. Unless they develop these habits, they cannot impact this fast-changing world.
Society is moving very fast and if you remain confined to your own things and if you don’t relearn and go with the same pace, you won’t be able to move with the pace of society. It will become impossible for you to impact the society. We need to learn new things, new techniques, new ways of communicating with people and learn the ways of influencing people. All these need sustained and consistent efforts to train and make ourselves in tune with society. I think it is the need of every worker of the Islamic movement now that in addition to the efforts related to understanding the basic ideology, the Qur’ān, the Sunnah, Islamic teachings,tazkiya efforts, etc. i.e. strengthening our moral and spiritual connections with Allah; learning new skills, new techniques and becoming more relevant to contemporary times is also something which constitute the priority for self-development.