We have seen your comments and your correspondent’s report (DV. Aug. 16, 1991) on the Bangalore “Consultation on Communalism”. You have every right, as a friend, to criticize me and the Jamaat- e-Islami Hind in the strongest possible terms. But the language of your correspondent has pained us deeply.
We do not consider ourself qualified to tender advice to our Dalits friends. Our observation that “if you pursue a policy of confrontation, you will never succeed” was intended, primarily, to convey the message to Muslims. This advice is based on two important reasons, namely, that in our view, the Muslim community is essentially a community charged by Allah to convey the message of Islam to all and sundry. Such an assignment at the present stage does not and cannot involve confrontation with those to whom the message is to be conveyed. The second reason, is that the hostility of non-Muslims in our view, is not wholly a deliberate posture arising out of only a willful struggle intended to decimate Muslim and Islam.
Failure Muslims: It is also a by-product of the failure of the Muslim community to conduct itself in accordance with the teachings of Islam. Like other communities, it too has been engrossed in worldly pursuits to the exclusion of their divine assignments
That by no means involves a departure from the Quranic teachings exhorting Muslims to stand up in defense of the oppressed classes and to fight for justice and the elimination of tyranny. On the contrary, this is the soul, the summum bonum of Islamic message.
But Islamic teachings distinguish between oppression and the oppressor. These teachings make. us believe that even oppressors may change, and hence we should address them as well, although their action have consistently been tyrannical.
Dalit-Muslim unity: If our Dalit brethren do not agree with this assessment, they have every right to differ. We only request them to permit us the same freedom. We further believe that, despite this difference in perspective, we may give a united fight against all traces of socio-economic and cultural oppression, exert our efforts to standing against all sorts of hegemony.
Your correspondent has also alleged that the Jamaat- Islami Hind lays the blame on the Muslim community for its predicament in India. This is a charge that we do not deserve. We only try to follow the Quran which says emphatically that their state of life is inalienably linked with the Allah’s message and Quranic values. If their life, honor and property is an easy prey to hostile forces, if they are politically and economically weak, under-privileged, and denied any influence and power, it is largely due to their violation of the Islamic values. By laying stress on this failure of the Muslim community, the Jamaat does not denigrate it, nor does it try to escape its responsibility towards it.
Cruel verdict: The Jamaat has also been accused of ignoring the socio-cultural and political needs of the Muslim community. That is a very cruel judgment on the all-round activities of the organization.
The Jamaat has set up hundreds of schools, promoted the establishment of savings societies, interest-free credit institutions, helped and co- operated in the organization of Muslim Majlis-e-Mukhabarat, and All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, tried to do a little bit in removing the differences between various Muslim organizations and human resources to handle it all alone.
Babasaheb as a revolutionary: The accusation of your Go respondent that we oil to SOG the contribution of Dr. Ambedkar and dared to dismiss his views as not worthy of due consideration is a “mistaken one. We do not consider ourselves qualified and competent enough to question his authority. We 3 hold him in the god possible run as the ‘harbinger of a profoundly just revolution and the ire benefactor of the oppressed classes. But we think | you would agree that this regard does not deny us the right to differ.
