[Reader-list] Is Subsidy Islamic or UnIslamic ?

[Taraprakash]

7 days in a week too. I start the concept of 7 sins for not mentioning 
Kabir, who preferred to die in Maghar, the place which sevenizing myths tell 
you to avoid death at. Why should one Bismillah Khan and not Kabir?
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "we wi" <dhatr1i at yahoo.com>
To: "Pawan Durani" <pawan.durani at gmail.com>; <parthaekka at gmail.com>
Cc: <reader-list at sarai.net>; <shuddha at sarai.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 3:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Is Subsidy Islamic or UnIslamic ?


> Dear All,
>
>       Well to start with, there are 7 holy places, 7 rushis,7 immortals,7 
> rivers  for every Hindu would think about atleast once in his/her life 
> time. One need celestial vision to view rishi,immortals and SARASWATI 
> RIVER disappeared with time. But rest are all available with the same 
> names defined since unknown time.
>
>  1)7 places:( AYODHYA,MADHURA,MAYA,KASI,KANCHI,AVANTIKA,PURI)
>  2) 7 rivers(GANGES,YAMUNA,GODAVARI,SARASWATI,NARMADA,SINDHU,KAVERI).
>  3) 7 immortals(Ashwathama(SON OF DRONACHARYA), Bali(DEMON EMPEROR WHO 
> DONATED 3 FEET TO VAMAN(VISHNU)), Vyasa(GREAT SAGE), Hanuman(DEVOTEE OF 
> RAM), Vibhisana(BROTHER OF RAVANA who ruled LANKA), Kripa(ACHARYA TO 
> KAURAVAS), Parasurama(SON OF JAMADAGNI WHO CONQUERED THE EARTH 21 TIMES))
>
>  Earlier days say 50 year back and even now at few parts of India(for name 
> sake), Old people will start journeying towards VARANASI  for a 
> pilgrimage, once the younger generation in their family got married and 
> enjoying the new life.  They feel great if they die at Varanasi if not 
> they will take a holy dip at Ganges in Varanasi and have a darshan of 
> VISHWANATH (shiv) and ANNAPURNA(Parvathi) THERE and will return back to 
> their homes.
>
>
>  Forget Hindu feeling, let me bring a recent incident to your notice. 
> USTAD BISMILLAH KHAN, WELL KNOWN SHEHNAI artist, denied to leave Varanasi 
> for medication at his last days.  At last he died at VARANASI at a riped 
> age of 92. He knew the importance of VARANASI AND GANGES there.
>
>  Government (who ever rules) Is willing to spend on this,that subsidies 
> and reservations for this and that  then, Why wouldn't be a GOI subsidy 
> for these places? There are so many Hindus who will not travel to these 
> places because of their poor economic status. Consider themselves to take 
> a dip in Ganges and spend their end life at VARANASI(KASI).
>
>  Though Upper castes or anybody else create/inject the CASTE tag/feeling 
> and insecurity, there is subtle in depth feeling inside in the minds of 
> people.  They are trying to take the revenge if they get a chance. If 
> anybody start quitting then one need to quit everything and eventually 
> goes to no control region(RELIGION,CASTE) whatever like where in lot of 
> freedom which will definitely leads to misuse. Because there is nothing to 
> guide you and whatever is there inside/outside you obiviously guide 
> towards bad.   Either LOWER/UPPER caste people should note this and 
> understand.  If people are strong enough to understand the system and move 
> on why would any body accuse somebody about the CONVERSION 
> tactics(emotional/sentimental/beneficial/comparative bribing)? Not only 
> that for everything If you are strong enough then you will not accuse 
> anybody for anything.
>
>  There should not be subsidies(gas,oil...,),reservations,bribing. Just 
> imagine and view FUTURE INDIA.  Can some body(like partha) ATLEAST answer 
> me the feasibility about this?
>
>  Dont murmur about INDIA by comparing with systems EUROPE,USA,SINGAPORE 
> etc.(Because same people living and running offices at those places are 
> verymuch part n parcel of India).  But ALL ARE ADVANCED,NIL CURRUPTION 
> where as India lets say Developing and corrupted in many ways.
>
>  Regards,
>  Dhatri.
>
>
> Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
>    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 
> Nadu politics 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 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," Ahamed 
> added.
>
> 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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