The preachings of Muslim televangelist Zakir Naik arouse not a little suspicion. Those who have heard him on his Dubai-based Peace Channel, whose relay in India was proscribed by the UPA government, would appreciate that his teachings are tricky. They appear to be on the level but are not. His bona fides to be a disseminator of communal harmony and equality of faiths is therefore suspect. But precisely for that reason, he is likely to appeal to the disenchanted among the Muslim youth, particularly in the subcontinent where the tone and tenor of his sermons will ring culturally true. One of the Islamist terrorists who last week killed hostages in an upscale Dhaka restaurant was apparently influenced by the preacher.
It is this which has renewed interest in Mr Naik. But it is a mystery why neither the Manmohan Singh government, which stopped the relay of his tele-sermons in India, nor the current Modi regime, has had the Islamic Research Foundation in Mumbai, of which Mr Naik is patron, investigated. When people from the Northeast were attacked in Mumbai and parts of southern India a few years ago by elements proclaiming support to Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, an unruly Mumbai mob had attacked a woman police officer on crowd-management duty and the name of the IRF had come up in that connection.
But so far there are no grounds for Mr Naik’s arrest, as some from the Hindu Right as well as from among the Muslim community have demanded, probably for different reasons. If he is to be taken into custody for tele-sermons which people had forgotten about, then the Modi regime will have to have locked up the many Hindu-supremacist elements, some of whom are legislators and ministers, for remarks designed to provoke enmity between communities.
Nevertheless, Mr Naik’s speeches or writings need to be scrutinised and institutions associated with him kept an eye on. But it will be a mistake for the official machinery to undertake the analysis. From it we may only expect a shoddy and biased report intended to please political masters. The content-analysis must be done by independent experts. We must be mindful of an individual’s freedoms — of Mr Naik to say what he likes and of people to hear him if they wish to, but also mindful that unfettered freedoms don’t exist, and that there is a current context — of Islamist violence worldwide — that demands due regard. Congress leader Digvijay Singh’s political opponents will doubtless seek to make political capital out of his sharing a dais with Mr Naik once. Mr Singh was obviously seeking to squeeze out some political mileage from that event. Leading politicians must learn to be more discriminating if they are to keep their credibility.
