SYED AHMED MUZAKKIR, the newly elected General Secretary of Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO), served the organisation in the last term as a National Secretary, member of CAC and Director of Centre for Educational Research and Training (CERT). He is a post-graduate in Economics from the International Islamic University Malaysia, with dual specialisation in financial economics and Islamic economics and finance. He has been associated with SIO since his childhood and has earlier served SIO in various capacities, as district president, zonal secretary, and zonal president of Karnataka. His areas of interest broadly cover social sciences, especially political economy, political sociology, sociology of change, literature, linguistics, and Applied Islamics. He is a Hafiz-e-Qur’ān, formally trained and holding Ijazah in Uloom at-Tajweed and Uloom al-Qiraah. In an interview with MOHD NAUSHAD KHAN, he said we are passing through a spiritual crisis and spiritual bankruptcy; that is why there is moral degradation not only in polity but in every other field.
What do you think are the challenges before SIO and how do you think they can be tackled?
One of the major challenges is the growing tendency of fascist forces. Apart from its political nature, social injustice, hate and violence has disturbed the equilibrium of social ambience in the country. It is being used to divide the people by inciting one community against another and by doing so political parties are trying to reap political benefits. If we think in the perspective of its root cause which has caused social injustices then the only solution that comes to mind, when we think in our ideological terms, is to become closer to Almighty.
We have to tackle all the atrocities and injustices towards human beings. The awakening of the student fraternity has made us believe that true opposition is now coming from the student community. The elected representatives have almost become non-functional. They have become mute-spectators towards all wrong policies. It is the student communities who are raising their voice against these policies and are facing the dire consequences as a result of that. UAPA has been charged on many and some of them have been detained and arrested; for example, Asif Tanha, Safoora Zargar, Meeran Haider and many more from the student fraternity.
Recently the first anniversary of anti-CAA Protests was observed by the protestors. Do you believe the protests can revive once again?
The movement we saw last year was people’s movement where people from all walks of life participated. Unfortunately, it came to a halt due to the pandemic and the government too came to backfoot on the issue of NRC and NPR. If the government starts again then there is probability that people may rise up once again. It was people’s movement and will remain so in the future also. In the age of social media, it would be difficult to stop people from raising their voice against repressive policies.
During the pandemic, SIO has played a very important role. How would you like to share it?
During the pandemic our cadre worked across India on the ground to help the people in need and to do relief work. People were affected in multiple ways, be it labour class, students, people from lower income group. They had lost their jobs and had no source of income and were facing problem to meet their daily ends like food. People were confined to their respective places and had nowhere to go to find food material and so on because of lockdown and even curfew. Many areas were converted into red zones or many areas were entirely quarantined. In such circumstances SIO cadre contributed a lot and provided food material and essential commodities. We also provided shelter to students who were stranded for any reason and were unable to move on because of the lockdown. We also helped them move to their desired places or homes along with all support mechanism needed at that point of time like transportation, food and water and so on. SIO has a pan India network; so we used all our resources and cadres to help the people in distress. Also, those in our cadre who are from the medical background acted as volunteers at the local levels. SIO service was recognised and praised at the local levels by district Collectors and administrators.
In the present context, what do you think should be the role of SIO?
As a Muslim organisation our first duty is to bring people closer to the Almighty. As we are students’ organisation, our target groups are students and youths and we have to work on them. The biggest crisis today is modernity and the spiritual crisis. We don’t consider spirituality in the narrow context and not only confined to certain morality. But modernity has moved forward, keeping on the backburner the comprehensive ethical dimension. It has resulted in so many problems and issues in society. In order to counter it, it is essential to bring them close to Allah the Almighty. Another biggest challenge is to identify social issues and find better solutions to them. We have to see all these issues and challenges from the Islamic perspective and will have to find out solutions under the guidance of the Qur’ān and Sunnah. Based on the Islamic principle, we have to provide a working model on the issues.
How do you think we can use the potential of youth towards nation building?
There are two very basic things we need to look at right now; they are to generate capability in youth and nurture capacity building in them so that they can play their role in nation building, effectively and meaningfully.
What do you think should be done to ensure value added leadership or quality leadership among students and youth?
As I have already said that we are passing through a spiritual crisis and spiritual bankruptcy and that is why there is moral degradation not only in polity but in every other field. If people don’t have any kind of ethical framework to anchor life, its manifestation can be found in politics, economics, society, day to day interaction and transactions. The root of all these degradations is essentially a spiritual crisis. If there is ethical framework then there will be values in society and it will also reflect in our economic and business activities, including political landscape, culture and mechanism. We have to fill the spirituality vacuum if we really want to address the structural problem and root causes.
How would you like to rate the success of SIO? Are you satisfied with its performance so far?
I believe that one should not be satisfied with own performance; only then one will try to do more and more and to give the best. But, on the other hand, since the establishment of SIO, we can say there has been continuous progress. In the last decade there has been remarkable performance and growth in every respect. In the last term we can say students associated with SIO have won Students Union elections in many campuses of India. SIO has continuously worked among student fraternity and intervened as and when required. We have worked in every field like education, environment and social justice, human rights; the list is endless. We have identified many challenges while working on different issues. We are still learning and still growing and we will continue to serve the people and the country.