Jamadi-Ul-Awwal 1422H
August 2001
Volume 15-08 No:176
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Jamadi-Ul-Awwal 1422H August 2001 Volume 15-08 No:176 |
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Orthodox in appearance but remarkably modern in enterprise, Bohras never cease to surprise a common Indian who is so familiar with the general backwardness of Indian Muslims. These two aspects set the Bohras much farther apart from Muslim mainstream than their sectarian complexion. Mullahs on the Mainframe is an insightful sociological study of Bohras who represent just one per cent of the Muslim community. Author Jonah Blank has dug out extremely private details from the inner recesses of the community that has mastered the latest in technology to place itself on a sound footing in business, commerce and industry. Not this alone. The community uses the basic Islamic instruments of charity, zakath, and qarz e hasna to ensure social equality, accords the women a high social status, runs a network of highly modern schools and colleges and has stayed abreast and equipped of the latest communicative tools.
All these may be myth-shattering facts for all those who essentially see Islam as an anachronistic faith incapable of facing the challenges posed by modern science and technology at best and hostile to the West at worst. But Bohras may have more surprises in store. Representing a denomination of the Ithna asharis (the Shias), they have succeeded in knitting their community closely enough to ward off all vulnerabilities, be it religious, denominational, cultural or economic. While Bohra roots in commerce may have helped them in self empowerment on socio-political level, the spiritual leadership of Syedna binds them in a compact entity with time-tested credentials in ensuring solidarity. Only on very few occasions this has shown breaches or allowed schisms.
Given the Indian tendency of discipline leading to dictatorship and democracy resulting in disorder, Bohra experiment in tight-knitting the community has survived dangers on either extreme. Syedna’s hold has remained intact, has successfully repelled threats from the dissidents and commanded following through benevolence inasmuch as the community has found his leadership a much safer haven to prosper than to stick the neck out and suffer in penury. Though there has been resentment against the iron-clad spiritual authority of the Dai-e-Mutlaq or Syedna in common parlance, a vast majority of Bohras realize that the ensuing unity delivers them much more than it demands or extracts. Instruments such as mithaq (oath of loyalty) and baraat (excommunication) may appear oppressive but the majority of Bohras recognizes the centrality of the spiritual authority of Syedna in providing the cutting edge to the community in matters as mundane as business and commerce.
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Bohras have immensely benefited from the modern technological innovations like Internet. A survey by the author reveals that the computer ownership among Bohras was 14.5 per cent against 0.2 per cent of India and 11 per cent in Japan.
It makes it possible for them to relocate themselves to spacious suburbs while still remaining in touch with their community. E-mail and cellphones are now helping them in having control over business. Badri Mahal, the office of the Dai has kept pace with the advances in communication from letters to telegrams to telexes to fax to transpacific e-mails. It is not unusual for a Bohra from Kolkatta to seek permission from the Dai to expand from his hardware business to electrical fittings.
The general tendency among Muslims has been one of dealing with the modern technology with a great deal of suspicion. But among Bohras, the embrace of modern technology extends to all sectors. Technology is not adopted solely for the sake of novelty, but anything that brings the community closer is heartily encouraged. Nearly three quarters of the survey respondents in Mumbai and Karachi owned dish antennas. High level of technology ownership among Bohras has been a factor in their progress. Social mobility had dispersed the Bohra community throughout the world and caused the faithful to lose touch with their spiritual touchstone and widespread losses in the matters of orthodoxy. Modern tools of communication have drawn them once again into a single virtual reality. No wonder then why the Jameatus Saifiya, the Bohra seat of learning in Surat, now stresses computer literacy in its education of future clerics. Dawat, the central organization of Bohras, has crafted a novel and modern method of identity definition by issue of cards, green, yellow and red ranging from extremely loyal to basic compliance to probationers categories. The fact that the spiritual authority can command compliance in matters such as avoiding alcohol and interest-bearing transaction and imposing a dress regimen (topi, kurta and sherwani) is a measure of efficacy of its control over the lives of its adherents.
Sectarian differences between Sunnis and Shias and and among the latter, the mainstream Shias and Bohra (who are again divided among Sulaimani and Daudi) may be beyond resolution even in distant future. But the Muslim mainstream could learn a lot from Bohras whose passion with the modern technology has enabled it to use it both for modernization and for reinstitutionalization of traditions. The Mullahs on the Mainframe is all likely to remain a major reference work on this important mercantile community for a long time to come. Through painstaking research Jonah Blank has produced an exhaustive study which shows how Islam could be put to work without contradiction with modernity in modern nation-states. Lucidly explained the book gradually takes the reader to central theme. Production is elegant.
This is short version of the Gopal Singh Committee Report which was constituted by later Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1983 to go into the condition of the minorities. Sadbhav Mission has brought it out in a 32-page booklet which is available for Rs. 5. It portrays the socio-economic conditions of Muslims, their educational attainments, the employment situation, the status of Muslim artisans, craftspersons, weavers, and other occupational groups. It also provides facts and figures about the benefits accruing through the nationalized banks, cooperatives, housing and other institutions. The booklet is a handy mirror of Muslim situation in India, and all these certified by none other than the Government of India. Its Urdu version Muslim Awam ke Halat e Zindgi has also been brought out for the same price. It can be had from: Sadbhav Mission, 5, C-Street, IIT, New Delhi-110016.
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