Every time I used to travel by taxi along the Indian Oil storage tanks close to Antop Hill, I used to think what would happen if one of them caught fire accidentally. The slums around are hardly a few hundred metres away and they are so closely set that it would be a disaster so unimaginable that almost every time the thought came to me, the monstrosity of it forced me involuntarily to abort even the thought. I would just say a muted ‘touchwood’ and move along.
Yesterday the horror was at the doorstep. The Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested two youngsters for planning to set on fire similar oil storage tanks at Sewri. Mind you the Sewri ones are bigger than the tanks at Antop Hill, are very close to the Harbour line railway station and a fire would have also shut most parts of the Mumbai port bordering Wadala-Sewri-Cotton Green.
Now what do you to say to such kind of madness? My Muslim friends keep telling me the religion is one of peace. I think it is about peace by a long mile but the community has not done enough to get the message across. Every time something like this happens, murmurs soon turn into full-fledged allegations that the Hindu police was being vengeful.
Idiotic journalists- I’m one so I know the kind- will soon publish stories of how the poor lad just spoke of work and his wives and never uttered anything about terrorism. As if a terrorist calls a seminar for the neighbourhood in order to announce he is now a Wahhabi and is adamant on blowing up anything that he did not see in Saudi Arabia around the time when the religion was set up. Since the Arabs of that time had no clue about oil and would have remained wretched goat and camel drivers if the Americans didn’t find them their oil, so the oil storage tanks have to go.
The problem is terrorism is now a monster that just cannot be tamed by normal laws. The time for TADA and the like are now. I’m sorry if I sound so harsh and dejected but I for one have always believed this country was set up on great ideals. The ideals which are mentioned prominently on a rusting iron board planted illegally in a garden outside the RCF headquarters Priyardarshini- on the eastern express highway, some distance from Suman Nagar.
On the board is a giant portrait of Babasaheb Ambedkar and the words- in Marathi- that the society he stands for is one of equal opportunities and justice for all, brotherhood among all. More intelligent words have not been spoken, I think.
In that scenario, accept my harsh tone when I say the Islam you care to create here is not welcome. The Islam that talks of brotherhood is welcome, but as is the case of any religion worth following, the obeisance has to be a personal affair. Politics, statesmanship, governance, administration, the commonality of community have nothing to do with the true following of a religion. So if you think all women must be in burqas and the country has to go from being one of kafirs to believers, then sorry, but I think the security apparatus of this nation needs to take you out. If it is without mercy, then just your luck.
If that is sounding morose, let me cheer you up with a small bit of conversation that I overheard when I went for my morning tea at the roadside tea stall near my house.
The conversation centered around four youth particularly unhappy with the events of yesterday and the arrest of the two youths for the aborted oil storage tank terror act.
The words ‘madar#$%d’ and its behen and beti varieties punctuated almost every word. I sneaked in closer to the group to hear what they were talking about. After all, two of the youngsters were wearing pathanis with the increasingly mandatory looking skull cap.
Then I managed to catch the direction of their talks completely. One of them lighted his cigarette in style and spat out ‘ab yeh hum logo ko batayenge Khhwaja saheb kaise Musalman the?”
The topic of discussion of course was the one that has divided the Muslim community in the city right through the middle. A Wahhabi preacher during a sermon in Ghatkopar last month ranted against the predominance of dargahs in the process of worship for a large part of the community in India. Just take a look. Islam in the city- even in its film versions- is predominantly about Haji Ali, Mahim Dargah, Haji Malang in Kalyan, one big one whose name I forget in Antop Hill and some smaller ones atop hills in Kurla.
Now this Wahhabi gentleman who spoke at Ghatkopar- following the strict doctrine laid down by another medieval Arab gentleman by the name Abdul Wahab- had uttered a lot of nonsense and violence about what best to do with the dargah of Khwaja Garib Nawaz – or KGN- at Ajmer. The original Wahab maintained that all mausoleums, dargahs etc are to be razed to the ground since God alone is to be worshipped. Note how in August 2005 the Islamic world was stunned when Saudi Arabi- long ruled by Kings who toe the Wahhabi line- agreed to the demolition of Prophet Mohammad’ house in Mecca to make way for the Jabal Omar Scheme, a project consisting of a parking lot, two 50-story hotel towers and seven 35-storey apartment blocks.
Coming back to my original line of thought- where I had promised you I will give you cheerful news- the boys who were having the discussion near the tea stall had come on bikes with KGN emblazoned in bright green on the piece of fibre protecting the headlights of their bikes, The youngster who spoke last- while lighting his cigarette- was livid that gentlemen like the kind who follow Wahab will now teach them- the boys that is- probably Barelvis but most definitely followers of the pious Khwaja of Ajmer- what or who is a true Muslim.
What is the cheerful part? Well Wahhabism and its ultra-orthodox interpretation of Islam further powered by billions of dollars for its propagation by the Saudi royal family, is spreading among Muslims like wildfire. However with Wahhabis now aiming their guns at fellow Muslims as well- the kind of ‘deviants’ who go to dargahs and sing qawwalis- apart from confirmed kafirs like Hindus, Jews and Christians, the fight is going to get interesting. The youngsters like the group at the tea stall are the ones who will help solve the riddle for us. When the monolith of militant Islam is broken, it will pave the way for the eventual defeat of the Islamists and a return to democratic values of peace and brotherhood among people and equality among sexes. Something I believe the original Islam propagated.
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