All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat and All India Muslim Personal Law Board are supposedly two common federations where Muslims, without any distinction and differentiation between Shia and Sunni or Hanafi and Ahle Hadith or Deobandi and Barailvi, are united for common as well as long term interest of the community. The community has always dreamt big of the two bodies. While going through the archives of Radiance, one may easily grasp the zeal and enthusiasm of the Muslim masses regarding the inception of the two in 1964 and 1972 respectively. Radiance, being the voice of Muslims, has always been giving space to almost every news of the two Muslim bodies as well as suggesting to them on every critical and crucial juncture as to how come out of the situation and what the public expects from the federations in this situation.
Talking of the pretext, on which the Mushawarat was incepted, the magazine states in its issue on 31 December 1978 that the holocaust of Muslims in Raurkela, Kolkata, Jamshedpur, Sitamarhi, Ranchi and at several other places in the country which claimed precious lives of at least 1090 Muslims forced the community leaders to think of a united Muslim federation for the greater benefit of the community and thus they formed All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat in a meeting held at Nadwatul Ulema, Lucknow under the kind supervision of Dr. Syed Mahmood on 7-8 August 1964. But, the esteemed magazine adds while recalling the founding members of the Mushawarat in a cover story in its issue on 5 April 1992, “In this regard, we cannot however ignore the service of the Late Editor of Dawat Maulana Mohammad Muslim.”
The magazine, on various occasions, highlighted the aims and objectives of the Mushawarat and praised its leadership for undertaking tours throughout the country to know the public opinion and to make consensus on an issue. In an editorial on 31 December 1978 the magazine writes, “Among many resolutions that All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat adopted in its two-day meeting in Delhi on 18 and 19 December, one is to again undertake a tour of the country with the message of love and harmony in an attempt to clear the communal atmosphere…We now need a parallel morale leadership (instead of political one). That is what Mushawarat wants to create an awakening for.”
The magazine writes in the same issue, “If any organisation can rightly claim to have done one single act of greater patriotic service to post-Independence India, it can only be All India Muslim Majlis-e- Mushawarat. The whole of Indian people do certainly owe a debt of gratitude to this body.”
Though Mushawarat has been a non-political body since its formation, it had greater impact in political allies. Radiance writes in its issue on 10 March 1974, “The government of Mrs. Indira Gandhi seems to have realised, of late, that it is no use patronising exclusively those Muslims who are too loud in their secular protestation, but have no roots in their own community.” But, the Mushawarat, like all other Muslim bodies in present, have been facing conflict and dilemma since its beginning and on the eve of 1967 elections, some bodies disassociated themselves from the Mushawarat due to political overtone of the later leaving people distressed and confused once again (Radiance, 10 March 1974). However, the journal describes this as a significant step of the organisation. “The most significant achievement of the Mushawarat meeting on September 22-23 1979 was to form a political alliance,” reads a sentence in the Radiance on 30 September 1979.
The magazine gives some valuable suggestions to re-unite the only federation of the Indian Muslims and asks the body to undertake some educational, social and economic issues with the formal consent and active cooperation of its all constituents. It also checks the plans of Maulana Mujahidul Islam Qasmi to form a parallel body and critically reviewed his proposals in the issue on 7 June 1992. It writes that those who are propping up the Maulana in his plan are whether innocent souls or fame hunger people or people who want to see “Tamasha.”
The magazine has often included an article before every meeting of the Mushawarat informing it about the situation prevailing on the ground and the problems confronting Muslims and giving the federation some points to think upon. Also, it has always been giving the full coverage of its every meeting and the routine is almost still in practice.
Returning to the magazine’s coverage of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, it is needless to say that the Board was formed in December 1972 when some ultra-secularists and ultra-nationalists were trying to replace the Muslim Personal Laws by so-called Uniform Civil Code and it was suspected, according to the magazine, that the government too was in the league of ‘uniformists’. One may estimate the Board’s power by a quotation of the Radiance, “The effect of this united move of the Conventionists was so great, that even before it started deliberations, the Calcutta session of the ruling party, being held just on the eve of Personal Law Convention in Bombay, categorically declared that there would be no intervention in the Muslim Personal Laws by the government.”(Radiance, 28 April 1974)
As the Board had come into existence to secure the personal laws of Muslims from being replaced by the Uniform Civil Code and the greatest challenge before it was to justify its existence after the goal was achieved. Then Radiance paved the way for the Board and suggested to it to work like a missionary organisation for propagation of Islamic social laws and educating people the values of Islam.
The Board then started taking interest in other civil matters related to the Muslims and there is an article in the magazine archive narrating the success story of the Board till date (Radiance, 7 July 2002). The magazine has covered almost all the meetings of the Board and always hoped that the Board, which has now become the most powerful federation of the Muslims would come out of its “pre-defined periphery.” In its cover story on 17 February 2013, the magazine expressed its joy when the Board, for the first time, voiced concern over illegal detention of Muslim youths and some other social issues like Direct Taxes Code Bill, Compulsory Registration of Nikahs et al. This Cover Story of the magazine received a letter from Syed Shahabuddin (Rtd. IFS and former president of the Mushawarat) saying talking on political issues might turn the Board into a political party and would take it away from its objective to defend Shari’ah and its promotion in the community (Radiance, 3 March 2013).