I may have my own definition of leadership but so do many others. However, a famous author once said: “A leader is one who knows the way, walks the way and shows the way”. Hence leadership is a beautiful relationship between the leader and the followers and the leader can sometimes be the follower of the followers if followers are bringing up something noble and show the way. Tested on the above parameters it is safe to conclude that Muslim leadership has failed Muslims and the country but at the same time, Muslims have had some very good leaders like A P J Abdul Kalam, Brig. Mohammad Usman and their failure today is so manifest in times of Coronavirus crisis.
The Maulvis of the kind of Tablighi Jamaat have taken over the leadership of the Muslim community even much prior to the independence and wearing a mask to hide their true identity and disseminating convenient teachings to brainwash Muslims that Ummah first Nation afterwards and that psychological imprint was so very visible from countrywide behaviour in corona crisis. A prime example is the rejection of Ram Mandir judgement after the verdict by the same leadership who swore by the Constitution and acceptance of whatever the verdict would be.
The fundamental question, therefore, is “Does the Muslim leadership knows the way? ” The answer is a big “NO”. The present leadership of the likes Owasi are vitriolic and communal to the core and incapable of uplifting Muslims and want their Ummah to remain in the red zone of Jahaliyat (ignorance) and prevent Muslims from imbibing scientific temper. This lack of scientific temper and sense of enquiry, since the time of banning printing press by Khalifa of Turkey for 250 years in medieval times, led to severe and grievously injuring attacks on our noble Coronavirus warriors who, in fact, are their saviours. The news is that apart from being 35 % of partners in direct corona cases in India, the Tablighis have infected Muslim children where ever they have gone. And the Muslim community and their leaders are loud and visible by their silence.
The good Muslims must be many are, absent by their presence, afraid of lethal attacks from orthodox rudderless leadership. There were some who paraded themselves before media fearfully were and are on the sides of Tabhligis who have worldwide notorious history. The partition, roasting of Kar Sewaks in Godhra, the involvement of Tablighi HQ in Nizamuddin in 9/11 are just a few examples of Tabhligis gift to India and the world and shockingly the Muslims are supporting them.
Infact the leadership of Muslim community by default or by design has been with non Muslim political leaders who have harmed the nation more by their appeasement politics and giving them false sense of superiority rather than of equality. Opportunistic slogans like Meem-Bheem are the means to exploit the SCs rather doing any good to them.The hollowness of their leadership was exhibited by Shaheen Bagh protest. The advocacy of Sharia law in civil affairs and not in criminal affairs highlights their hypocrisy and an effort to to take Muslims to stone age where as using every symbol of modernity and inventions at the same time.
The Muslim community must rise and unshackle the hold of maulvis and incompetent leadership and ask a very simple question… What has the Muslim community gained from them except backwardness and opposing the programmes of Polio vaccination, population control or the Coronavirus fight.
Therefore, a leader is not a leader who does not know the way and hence cannot walk the way or show the way and that, my Muslim brothers and sisters is the storey of muslim leadership in the past and present and hopefully not in the future.We therefore need a Muslim leadership, that does not prevent you from handing over hiding Tablighis or suspected corona patients, that prevents you from pelting stones on your saviours..The Corona Warriors.This is the time Muslims cannot fail for your own sake, for fellow Indians and Country or else the gap will increase. The Nation comes first and then everything else.
