Commonwealth Games 2010: We deserve the mess!

I guess, you have been hearing a lot of about the Commonwealth Games 2010 to be held at Delhi in news channels. I would not waste my time in describing all that has already been told; rather I would make an attempt to say what is not being told.

First, let me give you some background.

Irrespective of whether you agree or not, political parties in India are compelled to do corruption to sustain their annual budgets. Remember that, unlike in western democracies, people of India do not fund the political particles. Therefore political parties have to rely on corruption. It’s a very simple thing to understand. If you haven’t understood, let me describe a personal experience of mine. From a long time, I wanted to join politics. In this regard, I met with few local area-level politicians. Some of them were super-arrogant and gave no inside details but fortunately I came across one gentleman who gave a clearer picture. Consider that, you want a party ticket for a MP seat… in order for you to get that ticket, you need to give assurance to political party that you would bring funds for the following tasks

· Salaries for at least 100 party workers for your constituency. Even if you pay Rs. 5000 per month to each of the party worker, for the period of 5 years, it becomes 100*5000*5*12 = 3,00,00,000 (3 crore)

· Advertising the party during campaigns, road shows, media advertisements, etc. This depends on how much you want to advertise … costs minimum of 50 lakhs per constituency.

· Maintaining about 10-20 party offices across the constituency. Say, maintenance of each office is about 10,000. For 10 offices for the period of 5 years, it becomes 10* 10,000*5*12 = 60,00,000 (60 lakhs).

Overall, that’s about Rs. 4 crore. As a MP, you are supposed to get 4 crore in funding to maintain the political party in your region. How can a MP get 4 crore in funding? Why would industrialists just like that give money to political parties? It’s here the corruption begins. If the MP cannot accept corruption, he won’t be able to give salary to party members and maintain offices. Also, think about the politicians who lose in elections, how will they be able to sustain the party workers? Even though, in our school education we learn about democracy, but what we don’t learn is that… people need to fund political parties… otherwise, political parties will be forced to do corruption. And once they start doing corruption, they won’t limit to just 4 crore… but rather earn as much as they can.

Now, coming back to Commonwealth games 2010… let’s apply some common sense and understand why Indian politicians thought of bidding for the games some 5-10 years back. These games provide an excellent opportunity for the politicians to do corruption and that’s the main reason why India bid for the games in first place. Remember, none of us went to politicians and asked them to bid for it. They did it on their own.

So, now, I don’t really understand, why are we complaining? Are we complaining that, Indian politicians are corrupt? Of course they are… and let’s accept it… we made them corrupt. Also, remember, we live in democracy… which means we have elected them. So, we cannot blame the politicians… we got to blame ourselves.

Now, if you are able to understand what I mean…. then the most important question would be… how do we solve this mess with Indian system? The solution is very simple… but requires us to come out of the fool’s paradise we live in. It requires two things

1. Give up Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence

2. Every person in India should contribute minimum of 100 rupees to political parties every year

Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence have made of us coward. Let’s accept it. The politicians who are doing corruption know that, we won’t do harm to them, no matter what they do. They are not like British, who respected our non-violent attitude and left India. Indian politicians know pretty well the pros and cons of Gandhi’s ideas. While the common man is always asked to follow Gandhi’s ideas... remember the political parties itself don’t follow them. That’s why you see… all those burning of busses and public property by political parties.

The second thing is to give party funding. 100 rupees per year is not a huge amount… even a beggar would be able to do that. 100 rupees per person leads to 10,000 crore rupees per year as party funds…. this is sufficient for all major political parties to run successfully. Note that, each person has the freedom to contribute to any party he/she likes.

If you give up Gandhi’s idea of non-violence and give 100 rupees per year to political party of your choice… the nation would change within a year or two. Following things are obvious…

1. Since everyone has given party funding, everyone would demand zero-corruption from government. If they still do corruption, since you have given up Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence, you would resort to violence and may actually burn all the MPs in parliament alive.

2. You would treat anyone who does corruption more than Rs. 10 lakhs as terrorist. So, if you find a terrorist walking on the road… what would you do? You would kill him for the safety of nation and its people.

3. Each political party would work towards development and welfare of people, because each political party wants people to contribute funds towards their party.

Now, I understand, giving up Gandhi’s ideas means… you need to hit gym and work on your attitude… something that you won’t want to do. And of course, you are ready to shell out thousands in corruption but not ready to give 100 rupees for party funds. Yes, that’s why we deserve the mess at Commonwealth games.

Sunni, Shia and Islam – Common Misconceptions and truth

I guess many of you knew that, this was coming. From last two year or so, I have spent considerable amount of time to understand Sunni and Shia versions of Islam. To be honest, I was forced by the circumstances in life to do so. Being born to Sunni parents and falling in love with a Shia girl was bound to create some challenges but I didn’t expect it would be so difficult (although it didn’t take me long to help my parents realize that, as such Sunnis and Shia don’t differ much and most of the differences are purely because of ignorance). But for many people around me, belonging to one group and degrading the other is way of life. Somewhere, in doing so, they are missing out the true essence of Islam. For those people who divide Islam in groups, I would like to quote a verse from Holy Quran

Turning unto Him (only); and be careful of your duty unto Him and establish worship, and be not of those who ascribe partners (unto Him); (31) Of those who split up their religion and became schismatics, each sect exulting in its tenets. (32)” - Chapter 30, Verse 31 and 32, Holy Quran.

It is clear that, Allah has strictly prohibited dividing Islam into groups. However, for many people, dividing Islam in groups severs a good business model and that business models serves in propagating hate and misunderstanding. Today, one of the main reasons why I am unable to marry the girl I love is because of Sunni-Shia differences. But my pain is much lesser than the people who are directly suffering because of these differences in Iraq and other regions of middle-east. The hatred has reached to an extent that people are killing each other. I don’t know how long it will last and how much more we fall towards ignorance. But I have a hope that, we would move towards the path of wisdom and peace.

For the record, let me state, there is no Sunni Islam or Shia Islam… there is only ONE ISLAM… and that’s the truth. But since, there are many people, who are deeply ignorant about Islam and tend to have several misconceptions about Sunni/Shia, I thought of sharing you an excellent speech given by Dr. Shahid Athar that speaks about Shia-Sunni Unity and misconceptions.

Hopefully, in future, I would post some of my own research regarding Sunni, Shia and Islam. May Allah bless us with peace, love and intellectuality.

SHIA-SUNNI UNITY

By Dr. Shahid Athar M.D. Clinical Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Endocrinology, Indiana University School of Medicine Indianapolis, Indiana, and a writer on Islam.

The centuries-old Shia-Sunni differences are the major obstacle to Muslim unity. The enemies of Islam to their benefit have always fanned these differences. Unfortunately, some so-called Muslim scholars on their payroll have also played a key role in keeping these differences alive. Although I was born into a Sayyid Sunni family, I did not know of many differences while growing up as a child. Our families always respected Imam Hussain (peace be upon him) and his parents and participated in ceremonies marking the anniversary of his martyrdom (the 10th day of the month of Muharram which is called Ashura) by reciting the first chapter of the Quran (al-Fatihah) and other chapters and verses of the Quran and fasted on the ninth and tenth days of that month.

Now when I give lectures on Islam to non-Muslims, one of the questions they always ask me is if I am Shia or Sunni. I ask them if they know the difference. They have no knowledge, other than what has been given to them by the media. So they say Shias are the ones who are the bad guys, the militant version of Islam, and cause all the trouble in the Middle East these days. These non-Muslim American audiences of mine are surprised to learn that some of the known tyrants like Saddam Hussein and troublemakers like the PLO and Hamas are all Sunnis, just as they are surprised to learn that Tariq Aziz (Iraq's Foreign Minister) was Christian and not a Muslim.

This is what I say to them about Shi'ites."If Ali Ibn Talib (cousin of Prophet Muhammad) was a Shia, then I am a Shia. If he was a Sunni then I am a Sunni [i.e., a follower of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)]”.

In Islam there are five recognized schools of Divine Law: 1) Hanafi; 2) Shafi; 3) Maliki; 4) Hambali and 5) Jafari. The first four are called Sunni, and the fifth one, who in addition to following sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), also follows those of Ali and consider him as the rightful successor of the Prophet, are called Shia. The first four have many major theological differences among themselves and according to a Christian friend of mine, "The only time Sunnis are united is when they are fighting Shias." Shi'ism started as a political movement (Shia means follower or partisan) to help Ali become successor of Muhammad (PBUH). Around every successful popular figure, there are some admirers whose own future interests rest with the rise of their leader. Thus in Indiana, we have "Friends of Lugar Club", who are hoping that some day Senator Richard Lugar will become a US President. Nationally, we now have a Hillary Rodham Clinton Fan Club with 4,000 members! Thus there were the Followers of Ali Club, which later on became a political movement. During the initial battles with unbelievers, Ali, the Sword of Islam, was in the forefront and defeated and killed many of their leaders whose children and grandchildren, even when they became Muslims, always remembered who killed their father (animosity).

Ali was raised by Prophet Muhammad as a child so he knew Islam very well. Thus, when he became a judge, his judgments were based on strict Islamic principles, much to the disappointment of many who expected him to be lenient to the rich and powerful. He was so well respected and trusted by both Caliph Abu Bakr and Umar, that in difficult cases they asked his opinion.

Nevertheless, I tell my non Muslim audience that both Shia and Sunni have many things in common. They both believe in One God (Allah), follow the same Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as the last Prophet, offer five daily-prescribed prayers, perform the prescribed fast in the month of Ramadhan, go to Mecca for the pilgrimage (hajj), read the same Quran, and pay the poor-due. However, my answers can only satisfy my uninformed non-Muslim audience. The Sunni brothers, misguided by western propaganda, who are ready to embrace non-Muslims (especially the white ones), in the pretext of invitation to Islam, will not do so for Shia. They are ignorant Sunnis. Our job as a missionary should be to invite both groups to the true Islam and not chase them out. There is a movement in the Sunni world to have Shias labeled as disbelievers. I have been told that Shaykh Bin Baz of Saudi Arabia has declared an edict that the meat of the People of Book (Jews and Christians) is permissible for Sunni Muslims to eat but not the meat slaughtered by Shias. There are scholars on both sides, like Imam Khomeini and Shaykh Shaltut of al-Azhar who have done their best to minimize these differences and bring unity, but it is not working due to the misinformation prevailing in the common masses of Sunnis about Shi'ism.

Thus I am listing their misconceptions of Shia belief and practices. For answers, I have consulted two Shia scholars in America. Dr. A. S. Hashim of Washington and Imam Muhammad Ali Elahi of Detroit . Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr wrote to me "to ignore and not waste time in responding to such wrong allegations." He also mentioned that "a great deal of money and effort is being spent in the last few years to fan the fire of hatred between Shia and Sunni in the Persian Gulf region with obvious political and economical fruits for powers to-be." However, in the interest of Islamic unity, I must deal with the questions rather than shun them. Please note that Imam Jafar (peace be upon him), founder of the Shia school of law, was the teacher of Imam Abu-Hanifa (peace be upon him).

Misconception #1: Shias have a different Quran. They add another 10 chapters to the original Quran.

Response: Not true. I have checked many times Quran kept in Shia homes and mosques. I still find it the same as the original Quran. More recently, I took care of an Iranian lady patient hospitalized here. I saw a copy of the Quran by her side. I borrowed it from her and browsed through cover-to-cover. In Arabic it was the same as our Quran. Of course, since I did not know the Persian language, I can't say much about the translation. It is a sin to even say that the Quran can be changed or added to by Shia when God protects it.

Misconception #2: Some Shia considers Ali as God.

Response: Not true. It is disbelief to even think of such a thing. During the time of Ali, some pagan groups called Gholat did consider Ali as Lord. When he found out, they were burned to death.

Misconception #3: Shias have different declarations of faith and they add to the call to prescribed prayer.

Response: The declaration to become a Muslim, as administered to non Muslims, is the same. Some Shia add to themselves, "Ali is a friend of God (PBUH) or Ali is a spiritual leader of God," after the call to prescribed prayer, but not as part of the call to prescribed prayer.

Misconception #4: Shias do not perform Sunnah prayers. Sunnah prayers are non-obligatory prayers performed by Prophet Muhammad.

Response: Shias do perform non-obligatory prayers, 36 cycles per day in total, but call it Nawafil (extra) and not Sunnah as all of the Prayers are Sunnah.

Misconception #5: Some Shia believes the Angel Gabriel made a mistake and prophet hood was meant for Ali and not Muhammad (PBUH).

Response: Not true. No Shia thinks of such false claims. Only demented minds think of such questions.

Misconception #6: Shias slander and ridicule the first three caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman) and Prophet Muhammad's wife, Aisha.

Response: Shia considers the first three caliphs as companions and administrators, but not spiritual leaders (Imams). Imam Jafar Sadiq, whose mother and grandmother came from the line of Abu Bakr, said of Abu Bakr, "He gave me birth twice." Aisha is respected by Shias as the"Mother of Believers," as Ali respected her when he sent her back from Basra to Medina after the Battle of the Camel. If some Shia do slander the three caliphs and Aisha, they do it out of ignorance and should ask God's forgiveness.

(As we have witnessed how Imam Khomeini the Shia bravely declared death of Salman Rushdie -The author of Satanic Verses who abused the wife of Prophet Aisha and only the Shia Leader declared it as blasphemy, just for his Fatwa the whole western countries became against Iran. See how much price did Shia pay to defend Aisha - while Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE etc. etc as the Sunni government were silent they did not defend Aisha. Now who loves Aisha?)

Misconception # 7: Shias combine all five prayers into one prayer in the evening.

Response: Not true. In Shia mosques, whether in Iran or the USA, all five daily prayers are performed. Shia do combine noon and afternoon and evening and night, but Shia scholars recommend performing them separately. Such combinations may not be ideal, but better than not praying at all. How can a Sunni who does not pray at all be better than a Shia who combines prayers?

Misconception # 8: Shias do not pay zakat (poor-due).

Response: Not true. They not only pay 2.5% left over from savings as zakat, but also an additional 20% as Khums or general charity. However, they prefer to pay directly to the needy, or their grass roots recognized scholars rather than corrupt Sunni, or Shia (The Shah?) governments.

Misconception #9: Shias practice temporary marriages (Mutah).

Response: Mutah (temporary marriages) was allowed during the time of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and he himself practiced it. Ibn Zubayr was born out of the temporary marriage. Later on Caliph Umar prohibited it due to social reasons as the Islamic world was rapidly expanding. Shias discourage Mutah but do not consider it prohibited. Some do abuse this. As a temporary privilege during travel, it is better than adultery.

Misconception #10: They consider Imams infallible and above the Prophets.

Response: Not true. All prophets are born Prophet but as mentioned in Quran about Abraham that after passing the test, a prophet becomes a leader (Imam). Muhammad (PBUH) is the Prophet (Nabi), Messenger (Rasul) and leader (Imam). Shias consider The Imams as error free carriers of the message of Islam. Shias consider Ali only as an Imam and not prophet. But his relevance in relation to The Muslim Ummah in particular and the times in which we all live, his contribution as "carrier" is more relevant than the Prophets before Muhammad whose books are lost, and contributions are "legendary" at best.

With the little knowledge I have, I have tried to do my best as a Sunni in defending my Shia brothers in Islam with the hope and prayer to God Almighty that He will "instill love in the heart of the believers" and bring us closer to each other so that we jointly can fight our common enemy, Satan and his followers.

May God forgive my mistakes in this article and this book (Amin).

Open Letter to Mr. Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay

To

Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay,

Commissioner of Police,

Sholapur, Maharashtra,

India.

22/09/2010,

Hyderabad.

Dear Sir,

 

I write this letter to you with regard to the speech you delivered sometime back regarding Islam and peace. It was deeply inspiring and truly an awakening for all of us, especially Muslims of India. Your effort in promoting peace and scientific approach towards religion is commendable. Personally, as an Indian Muslim, I felt privileged to watch your speech and would definitely like to promote your message to as many people as possible.

I would like to express my gratitude for your

efforts. I would pray to God for you and your family’s success in all frontiers of life. 

 

Keep the fires of truth and peace alive, it is much needed in this dark world.

Regards,

Mohammed Abubakr.

 

 

 

 

Classification of Corrupt people in India

Sometime back I participated in an online debate regarding ‘corruption in Indian DNA’. The background of the debate was Sagarika Ghose’s blog post regarding corruption in Indian DNA and how to bring about a revolution. I would highly recommend each one of you to read her post, it’s worth reading. So, as we debated about corruption in India, one participant asked a very simple question, ‘how many Indians are corrupt?’ For a while, each of the participants in the debate gave vague answers like 10 million, 20 million, 100 million, etc. I somehow felt that corruption needs to be classified in terms levels. So, I proposed idea of dividing the corrupt people in terms levels, each corresponding to amount of money. We debated for a while on estimated number of corrupt people in India and finally agreed upon following numbers. 

Level	Estimated number of People in India	What it means*?
1	~0.5 Million	Corruption worth over Rs. 1 crore or more
2	~5 Million	Corruption worth over Rs. 1 lakh but less than 1 crore
3	~50 Million	Corruption worth over 1 thousand but less than 1 lakh
4	~500 Million	Corruption worth over Rs. 10 but less than Rs. 1000

*The money defined in the column relates to cumulative sum of corruption done by the people in their life time.

Level 4 Corruption: This level corresponds to people who have done corruption worth more than Rs. 10 but less than Rs. 1000. This level pertains to people who have paid bribes to traffic police, watched pirated movies, used pirated software, paying bribe to TC in trains for seat, etc.

Level 3 Corruption: This level corresponds to people who have either accepted or paid money worth one thousand or above but less than 1 lakh rupees in some form of corruption. These are the people, who have paid bribes government officials to get the work done, submitted fake bills while filing income tax, etc.

Level 2 Corruption: This level corresponds to people who have either accepted or paid money worth more than 1 lakh but less than 1 crore in some form of corruption. These are the people, who work in government and demand money for speeding up the work, participate in land grabbing, get govt. and private contracts by bribing officials, IAS and IPS officers who demand bribes, etc.

Level 1 Corruption: This level corresponds to people who have either accepted or paid money worth more than 1 crore or higher in some form of corruption. Majority of the politicians, Member of Parliaments, Member of Legislative assemblies, industrialists who have paid bribe to politicians to get contracts, people belonging to real-estate mafia, etc. belong to this category.

If we add-up all the people in different levels of corruptions, it’s makes about 50% of Indian population. Note that, majority of the remaining 50% of the population constitutes kids who are under 10 years, housewives, etc. who had no opportunity so far to indulge in corruption. Therefore technically, they are not corrupt.

So, the question before all of us is, in a nation where almost 50% of the population is corrupt, will there ever be a hard punishment for corrupt? The answer is NO. Corruption can only be punished if less 5% of population is corrupt. Countries which have corrupt people exceeding more than 5% of the total population have only three options.

1. Undergo a bloody revolution, where every non-corrupt person should try to kill the corrupt person until the fear against corruption is created. This means killing at least 20% of the corrupt people randomly.

2. Wait for a major natural disaster that would kill majority of the population.

3. Wait for another 100 years

The second option cannot be considered, as there has never been a natural disaster in the history of planet earth that has killed more than 1 crore people. There are more than 50 crore corrupt people in India.

Also, it is almost impossible for the first option to occur in India. The reason being, it’s in Indian DNA to remain timid. Instead of elaborating on this timid attitude of Indians, let me give you three historic examples

1. British treated Indians as slaves, yet Indians didn’t do anything. Indians could have very well killed every British during colonial rule in India and in fact as revenge could have occupied mainland England. Instead, we chose peace.

2. 80% of Indian population was considered as lower-caste and wasn’t given equal rights. Lower-caste people were humiliated to an extent that women of some lower-caste in Kerala were not allowed to wear a cloth over their breast before upper-caste men. Even after such humiliation, there has never been a recorded revolt by lower-caste people against upper caste people of India. It is as if the 80% of the people chose to remain coward before the remaining 20%.

3. On 26^th November 2008, almost every Indian wanted India to attack Pakistan and kill every person involved in terrorism. Yet, Indian government didn’t do anything and instead arranged a freak show to prosecute the lone caught terrorist.

So, expecting Indians to kill the corrupt people is heights of optimism. So, basically, we are left with the third option… wait for another 100 years.

Btw, if you are a non-corrupt parent, then do ask your kids to discriminate the kids whose parents are corrupt. Corruption is not very difficult to calculate. It involves very simple mathematics… any kid is who is older than 10 years can calculate it. At least that way, we can isolate some corrupt people and they might change for the happiness of their children.

Walking through life

Last few months have been very disappointing. Last week I had a deep realization that I should probably enjoy life as much as I can. There is no point in being sad about circumstances in life. If things are meant to happen, they would happen. And yes, people are imperfect and sometimes they don’t mean what they say. There is no worse way of wasting time than feeling hurt at words of people.

At the same time, I wanted to be clear on what I wanted from life. Enjoying life doesn’t mean screwing it up. Enjoyment can take different meanings depending on the mindset of the person. I kept asking myself, what does enjoyment mean to me? Is it watching a movie with friends? Playing cricket? Working on a research idea? Participating in a debate? Being with her? Advancing in career? The questions went on and my mind swung like a pendulum for a while.

And finally, I got the answer. Knowingly or unknowingly, I have enjoyed the moments when I have truly submitted myself to the will of God. When I didn’t get through the entrance exam for IITs (apparently I got 2 marks in physics main exam! I still want to know who corrected my answer-sheet), I submitted myself to the will of God. I ended up being at GRIET, a private engineering college. At first I felt, I am at a wrong place but as it turned out, it was probably the best place I could be. The kind of encouragement I got from the faculty was something I wouldn’t have got anywhere else. Not only they trusted in my abilities but also gave me freedom to do whatever I want. For many of them, I was the favourite student of the class. Three years have passed since I graduated and yes, I sometimes do miss those days. Writing research papers till late night, arriving late to college, sleeping at the first bench and being the favourite student of most of the faculty members… those were pretty awesome days and I think I enjoyed my engineering more than anyone else.

As it turned out, when I was near to the completion of my engineering, I was again in the state of utter confusion. I didn’t know what to do with my life. I had done all those crazy papers but what’s next? These were the days, when everyone was looking at GRE, GATE, GMAT, CAT… and all sorts of other competitive examinations to get admissions in top universities. And there I was with no direction. Again, I submitted myself to the will of God. As it turned out, life changed within a month. I got an opportunity to work as intern at Microsoft (thanks to a dear friend of mine who asked his uncle to refer me at Microsoft without my knowledge) and subsequently after graduation, I joined Microsoft as full time employee. It’s been more than three years with Microsoft and what a pleasurable time it has been. Again, writing research papers till late night, arriving office post afternoon, working at my own will and being totally supported by my managers and peers.  Few days back my manager got me sponsorship from Microsoft Research to attend International Congress of Mathematicians even though the conference is totally unrelated to my professional work. I can’t describe how blessed I feel sometimes for having the most supportive and encouraging people around me. And yes, submitting to the will of God has given me the true enjoyment of life.

Now, as I stand at the cross roads of my life, I want to submit myself to the  will of God. I would just walk the life as it comes and let God show me the direction of enjoyment.

(I have shared a picture of mine on this blog post. During the month of Ramzan, I happen to lose few KGs of weight and feeling real good about my fitness. This picture was taken yesterday during a trip to a power plant near Raichur)