December 10, 2011
http://karnatakamuslims.com/en/welfare-party-of-india-towards-value-based-politics/
Mr. Mujtaba Farooque, National President, WPI
By Zeeshan Lohani*
The Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) has taken a historic step by launching a new political party the Welfare party of India on April 18, 2011. Better late than never, now the speculations about the JIH’s active participation in politics should be laid to rest. While launching the party’s flag, the newly elected party president, Mr Mujtaba Farooque, said that the party aims at realising a value-based welfare state governed by the principles of judicial freedom and equality.
The party shall strive for promotion of ethical values and high moral standards in the political system and other avenues of public life. Stimulation, advancement, and fortification of democracy would be its basic objectives. The party has decided to work towards establishment of a Welfare State by recognising the right to livelihood and other fundamental human rights.
Rights of Minorities as recognised by the Constitution of India and international covenants will be its sheet-anchor. It does not ignore women and has decided to create opportunities to ensure that their femininity is properly respected and protected.
Empowerment of the weak and the oppressed has been given a prime position. Protection of cultural diversity and full opportunities to different cultures constitute the party’s other ideals. The concept of cultural federalism and the conservation of environment occupy due position in the order of WPI’s priorities.
Accountability and transparency are supposed to be the life-blood of the party. The WPI shall strive for a just global order; bridge the space within the frame work of integrity, and sovereignty of the nation.
Without doubt it is a Herculean task: a stupendous, time-consuming and, nerve-wrecking mission. What is significant, though, is that the movement is grounded in morality and character building. For all political purposes, we feel that WPI shall not be a party in the usual sense of the term. The WPI is a sincere essay in moral rearmament, a term that has lost its shine and value.
The JIH, since its inception in 1948, has been occasionally affirming its belief in democracy, and would take active part in the electoral polls. But even after six decades, it never came forward. The JIH went about its social, cultural, educational activities without caring who are joining it or who are quitting.
At present, the JIH has a large following of intellectuals across the country; it has thousands of members, millions of associates, lakhs of activists, and a large number of well-wishers including sufficient number of Hindus. It was proscribed by the Government of India twice during the emergency in 1975, it the JIH with an extremist organisation like the RSS, but failed miserably to justify the ban.
None can deny the social activities carried out by the JIH with its meagre funds to help the victims of flood and other natural calamities. Irrespective of the caste and community, the JIH has rendered yeomen service to the humanity by its relief works. It has undertaken several steps to rehabilitate the affected masses, irrespective of their caste and creed. With such a good moral background and track record, it has decided now to enter politics.
When the WPI was launched, the media raised a hue and cry and criticized its formation, and laughed at those who said it would achieve success. But the media should keep in mind that the Jan Sangh, the erstwhile avatar of the BJP, also had very humble beginnings.
The BJP’s example is sufficient to prove that any party with the support of the minorities, the Dalits, the weaker sections, the downtrodden, and backed by dedicated activists would definitely defy the odds.
It requires little time, as said by Mr Farooque, that two years are sufficient to spread the message of the WPI which would be in position to enter the political stream. The WPI office-bearers have representatives from all sections of the society. The WPI believes in cultural federalism and envisages a society where all cultures shall enjoy full opportunity to thrive and develop. It believes in federalism, cultural as well geographic and linguistic.
The criminalization is the biggest evil of our prevailing political culture. We need to put up a mighty social and public resistance against these evils.
The WPI will not be just another party engaged in power politics. Rather, it will be a movement to reform the Indian politics and will try to create a welfare state, based on moral values and governed by the principles of justice, freedom, equality and fraternity. To achieve its objective of value-based politics, the WPI plans to launch massive public campaigns and awaken the social and political public consciousness.
It will make people of India grow above the narrow discriminations based on caste, community, region and language, and nourish the spirit of unity in diversity. This motion of universal brotherhood implies that a warm hand of cooperation is extended to the week and the oppressed sections of the society and the minorities. It also implies that women get full growth and development opportunities and full protection of their femininity.
The people of India didn’t fight for independence from the British to replace the white masters with the brown masters. The objective was rather to change the style of ruling, though we have progressed materially, but what is the present situation, immorally we are gone down. Everyone recognises the presence of this fatal disorder, but no one seems to have any cure for it. Political institutions of all levels are totally in its clutches, their ruinous impacts having paralysed the bureaucracy, the media, and the judiciary.
The last few years have witnessed the emergence of the new institutional variety of corruption powered by a well-coordinated nexus between the ruling and the opposition politicians, corporate houses and their lobbyists. This situation has pushed the country to the worst kind of economic chaos. The world’s second most populous country wants a change in the order. The so-called secular parties have failed to deliver the results.
At this juncture, a party with dedicated activists is the need of the hour. Though the JIH Chief, Moulana Sayed Jalaluddin Umri, has categorically denied direct links with the WPI, it’s obvious that it will work on the guidelines framed by the JIH’s advisory council. The Congress has betrayed the Muslims and considers them merely a ‘vote bank’. It’s high time that Muslims realised the importance of forming a national political party.
The country, too, wants not one, but thousands of Anna Hazare. We need to end the unhealthy penchant of considering politics a profession and a tool for creating wealth. We need to wipe out the tendency of considering politics a weapon in communal chastisement and sectarian conflicts; politics has to be cleaned from crimes and criminals.
The criminalization and communalization of politics, the commercialisation and the sectarianism of politics are the biggest evils of our culture. Let us hope that the WPI does something better in which other secular parties have failed miserably.
* The writer is a professor of history at Anjuman Arts, Science, and Commerce College, Bhatkal.