[Reader-list] Is Subsidy Islamic or UnIslamic ?

[we wi]

Dear All,
   
  We do not expect/wish china to provide whatever of this pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, as it is under illegal possession. Similarly for the sharda temple in POK.   As mount Kailash is already in Chinese possession GOI support is necessary until Chinese vacate the illegally occupied lands and so as Pakistan.  
   
   
   
  --We expect/wish Pakistan to provide subsidy(better infrastructure facilities,basic amenities) 
     to HINGLA Mata temple at BALUCHISTAN. Otherwise in my opinion Pakistan will better
    give a contract to INDIA to look after basic amenities under BOR(built,operate,run)/LEASE 
    or whatever policy.
     (as yasir.media published a telegraph article on this a few days back).
  --We expect/wish Pakistan to stop day dreaming about Jammu and Kashmir.
  --We expect/wish China to vacate Tibet like Chinese expected/wished HONG KONG return   
     after 99 year lease from British, and thinking about Taiwan.
  --We expect/wish China should practice Buddhism more sincerely, other wise they better quit it. 
   
   
  As Dalailama and Tibet strictly believed in Buddhism and non-violence, they were like this today. If Dalailama was honored at US, why china felt uneasy(as per shudda words, private program, faith etc., )?   China would have realized/recognized/considered Dalailama as peace maker on this earth and hence the honour is a private program between bush and Dalailama. 
   
  Even kids will understand this simple thing, if you pick them anywhere from through out the globe . If any body wish to say anything please talk/write/question on the above.
   
   
  Regards,
  Dhatri.
  

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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