Eating your cake and having it too may be a tempting
thought. But you can’t have it both ways. The sooner Muslims
realise this, the better for the ummah (the global Muslim community)…
and the image of Islam.
A Christian pastor – Reverend Chander Mani Khanna, the
presbyter in charge of All Saints’ Church in Srinagar – is being hounded
both by the state and society for his “crime-cum-sin” of converting,
allegedly through inducements, a number of Muslim youth from the valley
to Christianity. The priest was arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir police
on November 17. More ominously, the arrest was precipitated by a growing
Muslim outcry in the valley, apparently sparked by a poor quality video
clip on YouTube showing the baptism of the new converts.
There have been protests on the streets, protests on the
campus. Leading the charge is Kashmir’s Shariah court. After forcing the
pastor to appear before them, a group of Islamic scholars claimed he had
“confessed” his crime. Addressing the media, Kashmir’s official grand
mufti, Muhammad Bashiruddin Ahmad warned that such activities “warrant
action as per Islamic law” and will not be tolerated. “There will be
serious consequences of this. We will implement our part and the
government should implement its,” he thundered.
What are Islamic law and a Shariah court doing in a
secular democratic polity? Your guess is as good as mine. The Jammu and
Kashmir government, it seems, knows better. Acting suo motu, the police
arrested the priest within 24 hours of Bashiruddin’s warning.
For what crime has Khanna been booked? Unlike states
like Gujarat, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir does not have
a law against conversions. But where there’s a will there’s a way. The
pastor has been charged under Sections 153A and 295A of the Ranbir Penal
Code, the Jammu and Kashmir equivalent of the Indian Penal Code.
Section 153A pertains to “promoting enmity between
different groups… and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony”.
Section 295A has to do with “deliberate and malicious acts intended to
outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or
religious beliefs”.
Why should the conversion of a few Muslims to
Christianity be deemed a malicious act intended to outrage religious
feelings? Why should it be tantamount to promoting enmity between
different groups? These might be questions for you and me. But Omar
Abdullah and his police may well be wondering whether the FIR and the
arrest are enough to douse the flames.
The worse is possibly yet to come. A dharma sansad
(religious parliament) comprising of leaders of different Muslim sects
in Kashmir is to meet soon to deliberate on the “grave issue” and decide
on a further course of action. Meanwhile, as is obvious from an appeal
purportedly written by his son – posted on the website Christian
Persecution Update India – the pastor’s family and flock fear his life
may be in danger. The responses to the video clip have apparently been
venomous. “We promise to kill all Christian missionaries and burn their
buildings, schools and churches!” pronounces one commenter while another
proclaims: “We should burn this priest to death!” Echoes of Pakistan’s
obnoxious blasphemy laws?
It is far from clear whether the priest is in fact
guilty of a cash-for-conversion deal. Only a thorough and impartial
investigation can establish whether there is any truth in the charge.
But in the brand of Islam that Bashiruddin and most mainstream Muslim
organisations espouse, the issue of inducement is irrelevant. The
theology is simple: for conversion into Islam, there is divine reward
aplenty for both the converter and the converted; but conversion out of
Islam is gunah-e-azeem (maha paap), treason of the highest
order, deserving of the harshest punishment.
What’s at issue here is not just something confined to
the valley but a global Muslim malady. Islam is today the fastest
growing religion in the world, many a Muslim will proudly tell you. He
will also tell you with equal aplomb that the punishment for a Muslim
apostate is death. The ulema call this Islam; the world calls it
hypocrisy, a double standard.
Obviously, not all Muslims are ethically challenged.
Take the unusual case of Sudan’s Dr Hasan al-Turabi, a man accused by
many in the West of fanning Islamic extremism. Turabi, otherwise an
advocate of an Islamic state and Shariah law, said in an interview in
1995: “If a Muslim wakes up in the morning and says he doesn’t believe
any more, that’s his business. There has never been any question of
inhibiting people’s freedom… The function of [Islamic] government is not
total.”
Human rights groups and Muslim bodies from the valley
and elsewhere must denounce the hounding of the pastor. The Islamisers
should be reminded that Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees to all
citizens “the right freely to profess, practise and propagate [their]
religion.” Perhaps they could also be reminded of the Koranic
injunction: “La ikraha fi ad-din” (There is no compulsion in
religion).