[Reader-list] Is Subsidy Islamic or UnIslamic ?

[Pawan Durani]

An intresting and fair write up on Haj Subsidy.

http://opiningcynic.blogspot.com/2007/01/poverty-and-the-haj-subsidy.html

Look around in India and it is not difficult to see the shades of economic
prosperity. The picture you see is only a few blocks away from my house in
Bandra (considered one of the more uptown locations in Mumbai). In a country
where it is estimated that only 1 of every 100 rupees that is spent on
development actually percolates down to the needy there is much merit in
being prudent with developmental expenditure.

Yet ours has been a country famous for its vote bank politics (and hence
expenditure). Be it the freebees that have become the hallmark of
Tamil Nadupolitics
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/870238.cms>or the Haj
Subsidy that has been the center of debate in this country for years.

A petition was filed in the Supreme Court regarding the legality of the
subsidy being afforded by the government to Haj Pilgrims. The petitioner is
questioning the constitutional validity of the Haj Committee Act, 1959.

To quote article 27 of the Indian constitution, which this act seems to
contradict

"Freedom as to payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion.-
No person shall be compelled to pay any taxes, the proceeds of which are
specifically appropriated in payment of expenses for the promotion or
maintenance of any particular religion or religious denomination."

In a country that still has poverty of starvation deaths is it necessary to
be paying out over 250 crores to one community.


Liz Mathew<http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2006/november/19/indian_muslim/haj_subsidy_government_proposes_others_oppose.html>had
written an interesting article on this

*While Muslim intellectuals fiercely oppose Haj pilgrimage, the government
argues that it is only assisting poor Muslims to fulfill their dream of a
Haj pilgrimage and upholding the country's secular credentials.

"For those who are going for Haj, it's a life time dream. The government is
giving only travel subsidy to those who cannot meet the expenses - its not
cash in hand," Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed, who is in
charge of Haj affairs, told IANS.

"The presence of Indian Muslims is felt in big way in an international
congregation. Now the world realises that India is home to the second
largest Muslim population. It upholds our secular credentials," Ahamedadded.

But academicians like Firoz Bakht Ahamed rubbished the argument.

"This is an argument that supports the compartmentalisation of people into
religious groups. India is not going to enhance its status by sending more
Haj pilgrims," said Feroz Ahamed, a grand nephew of freedom fighter Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad.
"Going for Haj is a desire and it should be done keeping in view the
economical status also. The government is not helping Muslims by providing
subsidy when the community lags behind in all social indicators. It is just
vote bank-politics.
"Instead, there should be a concrete plan to uplift the community,
especially in girls' education," he said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government last week decided to pay the
round trip fare to 10,000 more Haj pilgrims every year, taking the total
number entitled to the subsidy to 110,000.

The government has spent nearly Rs.1.80 billion on the last Haj and the
increase in the number could push this expenditure by at least 10 percent.

Muslim intellectuals point out that even Saudi Arabia, home of Mecca,
believes that any subsidy for the Haj goes against the spirit of the Shariat,
the Islamic law.
They say Haj is a religious duty only for those who can afford it and that
the pilgrimage may not be 'accepted by god' if money spent on transport to
reach the holy sites and on food is not the pilgrim's own.

Pakistan discontinued Haj subsidies to pilgrims as well as goodwill
delegations after a 1997 court ruling that any expenditure defrayed by the
government was contrary to the Shariat.

Syed Shahabuddin, former diplomat and a community leader, also opposed the
idea. "I am against subsidy," Shahabuddin told IANS.

"I have told successive prime ministers that this Haj subsidy is there
because of their political need, it has never been our demand," he said.
*

Hopefully the courts will once again step in to favor good reason!


On 11/5/07, we wi <dhatr1i at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> 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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