[Reader-list] Doha Debates in New Delhi

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

Muslims “get fair deal” in
India<http://frontierindia.net/wa/muslims-%e2%80%9cget-fair-deal%e2%80%9d-in-india/602/>
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http://frontierindia.net/wa/muslims-%E2%80%9Cget-fair-deal%E2%80%9D-in-india/602/

The Qatar-based Doha Debates staged an audacious discussion on
discrimination against Muslims here yesterday (Monday) just three days after
suspected Islamist terrorists killed nine people in a bomb blast in western
India. More than 300 people in the audience at St Stephen’s College, part of
Delhi University, voted overwhelmingly by 63.1 per cent to 37.9 per cent
against a motion that “Muslims are not getting a fair deal in India”.
Security for the debate at St Stephen’s college, one of India’s most
prestigious university campuses, was particularly tight with the theme of
the debate only publicised two days before the event took place.

“There have been minor incidents during debates in the past with
demonstrators shouting obscenities and even spitting at the debaters on
stage so we were particularly sensitive to any possible trouble,” said a
member of the student organising committee.

Speaking against the motion, Sachin Pilot, India’s Minister of State for
Communications and Information, claimed the government was addressing cases
where Muslims had been disadvantaged, but insisted they played a full part
in Indian life. “Muslims are represented by the top three Bollywood actors,
they are in the top echelons of sports and culture. Muslims have a better
deal in India than they have in any neighbouring country or indeed anywhere
in the world.”

Received to loud applause as a former graduate of St Stephen’s, which
currently has six alumni in India’s government cabinet, Pilot made history
in 2004 when he became India’s youngest member of parliament. He pointed out
that India, where Muslims have lived alongside people of many other
religions in peace for hundreds of years, was one of the only countries in
the world where Muslims have declared a fatwa against terrorism.

M.J. Akbar, a journalist and publisher and himself a Muslim, joined Pilot in
dismissing suggestions that Muslims were not getting a fair deal in a
country where for “decades they have been engaged in uninterrupted
democracy”. While admitting that some lived in severe deprivation, he said
their situation was no worse than a proportional cross-section of any other
religious group. India’s 130 million Muslims represent 13 per cent of the
country’s 1.17 billion population.

Seema Mustafa, a journalist and political commentator, arguing for the
motion, said the government had done little for Muslims who had been
especially victimised by security forces since the 9/11 attacks on America.
Muslims had also been barred from many jobs in the Indian civil service
although she admitted that India had had three Muslim presidents since
independence.

Teesta Setalvad, a prominent civil rights activist and one of two Muslims on
the panel, claimed that Muslims were being excluded from the “elite
political and economic leadership of India. “The Muslim today lives in a
segregated class leading to ghettoisation and a consequently very dangerous
situation. Above all, Muslim women are discriminated against to make sure a
credible leadership does not emerge.”

She said that wherever there was “a level playing field, Muslims succeed”
and that while “Indian people” can accept Muslims at every level “it is the
government that is prejudiced.” The Doha Debates make a point of discussing
highly controversial issues. Last year in Washington they argued a motion
that it was “time for the US administration to get tough on Israel” which
was supported by 63 per cent of the audience at Georgetown University. The
year before, at Cambridge University in the UK, participants rejected a
motion that Britain’s role in the Middle East was “in terminal decline” by
68 to 32 per cent.

The Doha Debates are a unique forum for free speech in the Arab world.
Chaired by Tim Sebastian, the internationally renowned award-winning
broadcaster, the series has been broadcast on BBC World News since January
2005. BBC World News reaches nearly 300 million people in more than 200
countries.