[Reader-list] Is Subsidy Islamic or UnIslamic ?

[Pawan Durani]

I never knew that my simple querry about whether Subsidy is Islamic or
Unislamic would make the heads of Modi baiters rise again. This question had
nothing to do with Modi or Gujarat.

I simply want to know as to why the muslims and their organisations dont
raise their vooice against Huj subsidy which is grossly unislamic. After all
we need to respect the sentiments of the minorities ....isn't it ?

Pawan


On 11/5/07, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> it is interesting to find minority-baiting raise its head on this list
> yet again, particularly in the wake of the damaging revelations
> forwarded on to this list about the pogroms in Gujarat. I am referring
> to the efforts by some on this list to highlight the so-called 'Haj'
> subsidy issue in India, perhaps as a timely distraction from the fact of
> the complicity of the Modi regime in Gujarat in acts of organized mass
> murder.
>
> Let me state at the outset that I am against any effort by the state to
> financially subsidize the practice of any religion. Religion is a
> private matter, and the state, I believe, should have no role to play in
> the pursuit of private matters. Subsidizing religion amounts to an
> interference in religious matters and questions of faith. So I am
> against the Haj subsidy. For the same reason, I am against the state
> subidizing and supporting pilgrimages by Hindus and Sikhs to Mount
> Kailash, Nanakana Saheb and the gigantic infrastructural costs and
> logistical support offered during the various Kumbh and Ardha Kumbh
> Melas. I would have no problems if the Indian government were to do away
> with the Haj subsidy, following the example of many Muslim countries.
> Let us at the same time advocate that the Indian government withdraws
> state patronage of all Hindu (and other faiths') religious institutions,
> functionaries, events, temple trusts etc.
>
> I have grown tired of the Hindutva lobby's cynical and unfounded
> invocation of the Haj issue. Let us, for a change, have the facts speak
> for themselves. I offer below an excerpt from a well researched article
> on the question of subsidies to matters of faith in India, including the
> 'Haj Subsidy' by John Dayal which was originally published in Himal
> Magazine in October this year. I hope you all will find it of interest.
>
> regards,
>
> Shuddha
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Financing Faith, by John Dayal
> Himal Magazine, October 2007
>
>
> "...The subsidy for Haj is a more complicated matter entirely. There is
> no equivalent of Haj in any other religion: the Hindu teeraths do not
> come close, and Christianity has nothing remotely similar. Even in
> Islam, Haj is obligatory only for those who are in sound health and
> can afford it. They cannot perform the pilgrimage on borrowed money,
> nor on the charity of others. There is likewise no mention of help
> from the state, other than facilitation.
>
> Last year, one B N Shukla went to court against the Haj subsidy,
> demanding it be withdrawn. His plaint pointed out that the
> Constitution provides equal status to all Indians, while also
> restricting the government from giving benefits to one faith at the
> cost of others. Shukla did not site any official record, but alleged
> that every year the government spends more than INR 3 billion on more
> than 100,000 Hajjis. Special flights are run on the national carrier,
> Air India; air-conditioned Haj houses have been built across the
> country; and pilgrims are provided free food and lodging during the
> course of their trip. Even Islamic countries do not give subsidies for
> Haj, Shukla's application noted. A notice was subsequently sent to the
> government, the official response to which was reiterated in its
> response to a question in Parliament.
>
> The Haj subsidy was formally raised in the Parliamentary Standing
> Committee on External Affairs during P V Narasimha Rao's government,
> following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. All
> parties were represented in the Committee, and the recommendation to
> reduce and eventually abolish the subsidy was unanimous. Fourteen
> years later, in 2006, the government reported that 83,000 pilgrims
> performed the Haj during the previous year, out of which the
> government subsidised around INR 1.8 billion. For good measure,
> Parliament was told that 529 Hindu pilgrims performed the Kailash
> Mansarovar Yatra that same year, at a public cost of INR 17.2 million.
> Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma, who reported
> these figures, also said that 8179 people visited Sikh gurudwaras and
> Hindu temples in Pakistan the previous year. Both groups were given
> free medical assistance, security and various escorts.
>
> For the RSS, the Haj-related data came at an opportune time. It
> reported a 500 percent increase in just seven years, which the RSS
> described as an "alarming, non-secular appeasement of one religious
> community when one considers that the Indian government is so
> desperate to reduce food grains and fertiliser subsidy to the large
> and poor farming community."
>
> Muslims and secular scholars alike point out that the Haj subsidy
> began during the early 1970s, after the oil crisis had caused Haj-
> related transportation prices to skyrocket. It was introduced as
> something of a stopgap measure - and the charge of official
> 'appeasement' of minorities has lingered ever since. The Haj charter
> fare was first fixed at INR 6000, before being eventually doubled. Of
> the 120,000 Indian Muslims who undertook the Mecca pilgrimage this
> year, some 70,000 went by air, and were able to avail themselves of a
> subsidy of more than INR 20,000 per person. (There is no subsidy for
> the 50,000 others who went by ship.) But former Member of Parliament
> Syed Shahabuddin points out that many Indian Muslim pilgrims come from
> rural areas, and are not even aware of the government subsidy. As
> such, much of this money is simply going to an elite group of Muslims,
> who would, one would assume, least need the taxpayer's subsidy.
>
> Islam in India further benefits from the public exchequer in the
> larger mosques, which receive government doles for salaries, annual
> upkeep and additional expenses. As elsewhere, however, very little
> information on these headings is public.
>
> Mela monies
> The situation with regards to Hinduism is even murkier. Despite the
> significant attention paid to the interface between the government and
> Islam, rarely are questions raised regarding government subsidies to
> Hindu and Sikh pilgrimages, in temple upkeep, in paying for the
> salaries of Hindu priests, and in maintaining public spaces during
> such events as the Maha and Ardha kumbhs. (Christians, meanwhile,
> claim that there is next to no money spent on them, other than by the
> Archaeological Survey of India on heritage buildings in Goa, or by the
> British government on graves for soldiers.)
>
> As noted, Hindus do receive government subsidies for pilgrimages to
> Mount Kailash, and from a variety of sources. First, the Ministry of
> External Affairs routes INR 3250 to each Kailash yatri. The Uttar
> Pradesh state government then adds INR 5000 per pilgrim. The Delhi
> state government adds another INR 5000 for any pilgrim from Delhi.
> Likewise, the Gujarat government gives a kit worth INR 2500 to every
> yatri from that state. This kind of subsidy may well be given by other
> states as well, although such information is not publicly available.
>
> Gujarat presents a particularly interesting case of state money being
> funnelled towards Hindu causes. The BJP government in 2001 announced
> that it would begin paying monthly salaries to Hindu priests in the
> state. During the first phase, each priest of the 354 government-
> controlled devasthans, or temples, would be entitled to a monthly
> salary of about INR 1200. The late Haren Pandya, at that time Minister
> of State for Home Affairs with the additional charge of "pilgrimage
> development and cow protection", told the media that priests of other
> religions were paid from either the Waqf Board or trusts managing the
> place of worship. The new payments were "to give justice to the
> feelings of the Hindu society that salaries are being paid to them",
> Pandya explained.
>
> There is some information available on the tab for massive Hindu
> fairs, although much of this spending is merely labelled as
> 'infrastructure development'. The grounds of the gargantuan 12-yearly
> Allahabad Maha Kumbh, for instance, are spread over 1500 hectares.
> During the last Kumbh Mela, in 2001, the site boasted 12,000 taps,
> capable of supplying 50.4 million litres of water; 450 kilometres of
> electric lines and 15,000 streetlights in place; 70,000 toilets; and
> 7100 sweepers to clean up the mess generated by an estimated five
> million devotees. There were also 11 post offices and 3000 temporary
> phone connections, while 4000 buses and five trains were also
> requisitioned for the mela period. At its peak, the mela
> administration had more than 80 officials working full time. The
> budget for all of this was INR 1.2 billion - INR 800 million from the
> state government, and INR 400 million from the Centre. This did not
> include the costs of deploying around 11,000 policemen, as well as 40
> companies of the Provincial Armed Constabulary and other paramilitary
> forces.
>
> The case of the Ujjain Ardha Kumbh, in Madhya Pradesh in April 2004,
> was no different. At that time, Chief Minister Uma Bharati promised
> that she would do all she could for the festival, which at the time
> was expecting millions of pilgrims. Bharati ultimately received
> additional funds from the Centre to the tune of INR 10 billion.
>
> Melas and pilgrimages aside, the government does not reveal how much
> it costs to broadcast the gurubani from the Golden Temple in Amritsar,
> nor explain why some temples and church groups receive tax exemptions
> on commercial activities such as medical colleges, charging hundreds
> of thousands of rupees in capitation or admission charges..."
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