On May 21, 2015, a young MBA graduate Zeeshan Ali Khan was refused a job by Krishna Exports Private limited. Six days later, a young lady Misbah Qadri was allegedly denied an apartment because she was a Muslim. Both the incidents are highly condemnable and unacceptable in today’s India. However, it is required that we analyse the deep-rooted cause of such incidents. Both these victims were invited to speak in the Prime Time discussion of the news channel Times Now on May 28, 2015. It came to be known that Zeeshan Ali Khan was denied a job on the basis of religion and to protest against that, all his Hindu friends who were selected by the same company, refused their jobs. Misbah Qadri was also supported by her friends, who stood by her and helped her fight against the partiality.
During the same time, another incident occurred, when an advertisement appeared in several newspapers, including The Indian Express, on August 13, 2014, stating that a supermarket in Kerala was in need of female staff in the billing section and only women belonging to the Christian and Muslim faith could apply. The matter was widely discussed in social media, including Facebook, where the advertisement was re-posted. Even then, the supermarket owners, who belong to a prominent Muslim family in Kerala, kept mum over the issue.
But after Zeeshan Ali Khan was refused a job at a Mumbai-based company, the company immediately sent a clarification mail to him, saying that it does not discriminate on the basis of religion and that the “erroneous” rejection letter was sent by a fresh trainee. The letter cited many examples of hired Muslim employees. Following this, Zeeshan Ali Khan was flooded with job offers, one of which was from the famous Adani Group, which he overwhelmingly accepted.
In a similar way, the supervisor of Sanghvi Heights, where Misbah Qadri was to reside with some of her Hindu colleagues as a tenant, said that no such discrimination is followed in their society and the broker must have conveyed a wrong message. He further clarified that a Muslim family was currently living in the same building.
We can notice the differences between the attitudes of the supermarket owner who refused jobs to Hindus, a diamond company which refused a job to Zeeshan Ali Khan and Sanghvi Heights that allegedly refused a residence to Misbah Qadri for being a Muslim. While the owner of the supermarket was not at all apologetic for his act, the latter were.
However, Misbah Qadri gave two different statements. One, that, she was denied an apartment for being a Muslim and two, that, whilst her flatmates were successful in getting an apartment, she was forced to sign a bond stating that she would be responsible in case of any hate crime that might take place against her. If that wasn’t enough, the broker also threatened to take her to the police if she refused to vacate the house. These contradicting statements simply raise a question whether she signed the bond for an apartment she was not going to live in or was she refused an apartment she was already living inIJ And also, the clash in the timing of this incident and the one concerning Zeeshan Ali Khan also raises a question on the veracity of the incident.
Are all refusals based on discriminationIJ
There are many landowners who are not willing to rent out their homes to policemen, lawyers, mediapersons, politicians and bureaucrats. Does it really mean that they are being discriminated againstIJ In villages, most people lease out their lands to other people belonging to the similar caste or religion, or even only to their relatives. There is also a frequency of instances when families do not rent out their homes to younger men, especially if they have young girls at home. In almost all the educational institutions in India, male students are not allowed to visit the women’s hostel, whereas female students are allowed to visit the men’s hostel. Can this be described as discrimination against menIJ
Instead of always making an emotional rhetoric on air, our mediapersons should feel and understand the problems faced by the general public. A landowner is not always rich. He may be a landlord of one property and a tenant of another. The common man is very insecure, does not want any controversies and cannot afford to get entangled in the expensive legal system of India; however, mediapersons make money out of such controversies. All the examples cited above are more related to the insecurity in the minds of the people rather than discrimination. People do not want to rent out their property to influential people out of insecurity. As mentioned in the article on May 2, 2015 in The Pioneer (‘Ways & Means To Stop Farmers’ Suicides’), a lot of landowners are afraid to lease out their lands and keep it barren due to insecurities generated by a lack of clarity in the property rights. This is one of the reasons why villagers lease out their lands only to their family members or relatives or people belonging to similar castes and religion, the reason being that, in the eventuality of dispute, the issue can be easily resolved with the help of Khaps or panchayat.
The other reason of not letting out property, especially residential property, to people belonging to other religions, is differences in culture. For instance, some sects, including the Jains, are complete teetotalers, who cannot even tolerate the odour of non-vegetarian food. Instead of forcing their eating habits on others living in their neighbourhood, they prefer to live separately. So they generally form a societal group and live together, avoiding taking in people with dissimilar food habits. These people are so sensitive about their food habits that they can offer food to anyone, but do not accept food cooked by a non-vegetarian family. Even non-vegetarian Hindus are denied homes in these societies. But as Muslims are generally non-vegetarians in practice, they are outrightly refused.
This practice is not just limited to Jains or other specific sects of Hindus. One may find many clusters belonging to different communities all over the world. The Chinese form clusters in Chinatowns in big cities all over the world, and Indians cluster in India Square or little India in countries like New Jersey, Singapore, and cities like Vancouver and london.
A relevant example from Aligarh Muslim University provides a microcosm of the larger issues at hand. On July 9, 2013, the Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University approved changes in the office timings of all the academic and non-academic departments of AMU, including Central offices during the month of Ramadan. The order read: “The time for all working days will be from 8.00 am to 2.30 pm without any break while on Friday the offices will open from 8 am to 12 noon”. The order further read: “No refreshment will be served at any meeting/function to be held/organised in the university during the fast in order to maintain the sanctity of the Ramadan. The university siren will sound 20 minutes before the closing time of Sahar and at the time of Iftaar every day.” Most of the hostels of AMU do not follow the usual schedule of providing food in the month of Ramzan, and provide food only at the time of Sahar and Iftaar while skipping breakfast and lunch. This practice has never been opposed by the non-Muslim students, who almost form a majority in number. It has neither been brought to light by the secular media nor been made into an issue by the non-Muslim students. But if thought out logically, it seems imperative. It can not even be justified. This is an imposition on others. By the same logic, if the similar practices from other religions are also adopted, then the hostels of AMU will hardly ever be able to serve food. This is highly surprising for a Government funded-institution. The cause is that AMU is predominantly governed by Muslim officials.
As far as preferences to a particular religion in terms of employment is concerned, educational institutions like Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Zakir Hussain College (Delhi University), et cetera, have an enormously less percentage of non-Muslims compared to the proportion of non-Muslims in all other educational institutions. A cursory glance at the website of these institutions may tell that Muslim employees (teaching or non-teaching staff) are three to five times of their proportion in total population, despite their educational backwardness.
The issue of depriving food to non-Muslim students during Ramzan and the discrimination of non-Muslims in the employment section, even in Government-funded institutions, never gets raised in the media. While a refusal to employ a Muslim by a private firm and a refusal to let out an apartment to, once again, a Muslim by a private owner, is no doubt condemnable, these issues garner headlines in almost all national dailies for several days. It becomes a matter of debate in the media for days when some people dislike the smell of non-vegetarian food cooked and make their own separate societies and live together under the Constitution provisions, instead of demanding bans on the items they do not eat and instead of forcing others to stop eating those items in their neighbourhood.
Similarly, even Muslims do not allow any shop selling pork to be in a locality where they are the majority. They do not allow any tenant to cook pork at home. Even, Saleem Zafar, owner and CEO of Adarsh Group, is constructing ‘Muslims-only apartment’ in Greater Noida. So blaming just one sect or religion is baseless and ridiculous.
We cannot outrightly blame the citizens when the Constitution permits people to do so, otherwise we would not have had separate laws for separate communities. For example, the Muslim personal law, Hindu Marriage Act, etcetera; separate institutions for different communities like madrasas, St Xavier’s etcetera; and separate hostels for separate communities like Gujjar hostel, Jat hostel, Meena hostel, Rajput hostel, Sikh hostel, Islamic hostel, Christian hostel etcetera. No secular media has ever tried to challenge these provisions of Constitutions, which are completely outdated and helps in the segregation of communities. These are pure restrictions and aid in communalism. Other than religion-based discrimination, there are housing societies too which discriminate based on one’s occupation, for example, HT Apartments, media apartment, etcetera, which can only be purchased by their employees.
The materialist media
A careful look at most of the newspapers in India can give an insight into a lot of vacancies in the Gulf countries and even in India that are advertised exclusively for Muslims. Unfortunately, the Muslims never boycotted these companies, even after it was done by their secular well-wishers, in case of Zeeshan Ali Khan. This has never been made into an issue by any television channel, not even Times Now, which claims to be a crusader in such cases. The newspapers are also guilty of publishing the matrimonial advertisements stating “only higher caste bride/ groom required” or “only Sunni Muslim bride/groom required”. Such advertisements get published despite being discriminatory, only because they bring in a lot of money. The media agencies also never refuse to publish these discriminatory advertisements on ethical grounds.
It is high time the media came forward and showed some courage to refuse the advertisements that are discriminatory to any religion or caste, or which demeans anyone on the basis of caste, region, religion, race, complexion etcetera. Without putting theory into practice, the preaching of secularism will be of no use.
(The author teaches Economics at the University of Delhi. He can be reached at pioneer.article@gmail.com)
