“Apney quwwat-e-bazoo pur etmaad kur, iltija na kur sayyad say; Kabhi koi qufs toota hay faryaaad say” (Put your own abilities to work, do not grovel; Has the groveling of the tormented ever opened the gates of any prison)

Recently when my US born medical student daughter doing rotational training in a hospital in Mumbai told the head of her department that, I was born in Azamgarh, the said eminent doctor told her that she should not mention this to anyone lest she may get into trouble.
The young son of Dr Javed Akhtar, the top orthopedic surgeon in Azamgarh studying for MBA in Mumbai was falsely charged by police as belonging to the Indian Mujahideen group without any evidence or information. The national English and Hindi media is routinely referring to Azamgarh as “Atankgarh (terrorist town)”. When well educated and well to do Azamgarh Muslims travel to another city and to rent a room in a hotel identify themselves as being from Azamgarh, they are denied lodging. When well educated/professional Azamgarh Muslims try to rent a house in another city they are refused.

The Despair: If you thought this was happening in a police state, think again, for this is happening in the world’s largest secular democracy of India. In September 2008 the police, unable to locate the culprits responsible for the string of terrorist bombings across India, decided to target and kill a few Azamgarh Muslim students at the Jamia Milia university, New Delhi, with a fake encounter. Despite many appeals by many upright national leaders, institutions, many huge rallies of Muslims and other deprived minorities, and even a court of law, the government of India continues to refuse to conduct even a simple magisterial enquiry into these instances of harassment of the Muslims of Azamgarh.

The mainstream English language print and electronic media is going full-bore in maligning the Muslims of eastern Uttar Pradesh in general and those of Azamgarh in particular as terrorism-prone. The fear of being maligned as terrorists and even arrested seeped so deep that many Azamgarh Muslims, when asked to name their hometown, gave names of other cities. Many a Azamgarh Muslims withdrew their children, who were pursuing higher studies in sciences, management, engineering in major universities in other cities, back to Azamgarh.

The careers of many an enterprising Muslim students from Azamgarh, is wilting. The continous presence of special Anti Terrorist Section (ATS) police units in various Muslim localities in Azamgarh district, random police check points and random arrests of Muslim youth imposed a regime of fear on the district. The city of Azamgarh felt as if it had been marked down as enemy territory - a camp under siege.

This oppressive situation in Azamgarh and its adjoining towns has been particularly frustrating for the Muslims of the district because in recent decades they have put most of their resources and energies into improving their educational institutions, into converting their city into a hub of the commercial activity for eastern Uttar Pradesh, and into modernizing their city. What I saw in a recent visit to Azamgarh after many years was that, this small pastoral town has transformed into a beehive of modern commercial activities.

The newly improved road from the state capitol of Lucknow and new express trains have made it far easier to reach Azamgarh in a few hours; gone is the day-long and arduous train ride on meter gauge through the Shagunj junction. What the Muslims of Azamgarh found most disappointing was that the secular political parties that often proclaimed themselves as the defenders of the Muslims either kept quiet or made only cosmetic noises, as their community was being maligned as soft on terrorism. The Congress party, the Samajwadi party, the Bahujan Samaj party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal made no real effort to ensure that the government conducts a quick investigation, and then absolves the 2 million strong Muslim community of Azamgarh from the nefarious “Atankgarh” label.

In fact when the local BSP member of parliament, Akbar Ahmad Dumpy wore the kafayah (an Arab headgear) to a session of parliament to protest government inaction against the maligning of Azamgarh Muslims, the BSP supreme leader Mayawati admonished him and indicated that she may deny him the BSP ticket in the upcoming election.

Note: The above article is a partial half of the same titled post taken from indianmuslims.in

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