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The Trouble with Dr. Zakir NaikBritain's decision to bar an influential Muslim cleric from entering the country underscores the failure ofIndian secularism.
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Reuters

Zakir Naik

last year for planning suicide attacks on the New York

subway; Rahil Sheikh, accused of involvement in a

series of train bombings in Bombay in 2006; and Kafeel

Ahmed, the Bangalore man fatally injured in a failed

suicide attack on Glasgow airport in 2007.

Nonetheless, when the doctor appears on a mainstream

Indian news channel, his interviewers tend to be

deferential. Senior journalist and presenter ShekharGupta breathlessly introduced his guest last year as a

"rock star of televangelism" who teaches "modern

Islam" and "his own interpretation of all the faiths

around the world." A handful of journalistsamong

them Praveen Swami of the Hindu, and the grand old

man of Indian letters, Khushwant Singhhave

questioned Dr. Naik's views, but most take his carefully

crafted image of moderation at face value.

At first glance, it's easy to understand why. Unlike the

foaming mullah of caricature, Dr. Naik eschewstraditional clothing for a suit and tie. His background as

a doctor and his often gentle demeanor set him apart, as

does his preaching in English. Unlike traditional clerics,

Dr. Naik quotes freely from non-Muslim scripture, including the Bible and the Vedas. (You have to

pay attention to realize that invariably this is either to disparage other faiths, or to interpret them

in line with his version of Islam.) The depth of Dr. Naik's learning is easily apparent.

But this doesn't fully explain Dr. Naik's escape from criticism. It helps that Indians appear to have

trouble distinguishing between free speech and hate speech. In a Western democracy, demanding

the murder of homosexuals and the second-class treatment of non-Muslims would likely attract

public censure or a law suit. In India, it goes unchallenged as long as it has a religious imprimatur.However, create a book or a painting that ruffles religious sentiment, as the writer Taslima

Nasreen and the painter M. F. Husain both discovered, and either the government or a mob of

pious vigilantes will strive to muzzle you.

In general, India accords extra deference to allegedly holy men of all stripes unlike, say, France,

which strives to keep religion out of the public square. Taxpayers subsidize the Haj pilgrimage for

pious Muslims and a similar, albeit much less expensive, journey for Hindus to a sacred lake in

Tibet. This reflexive deference effectively grants the likes of Dr. Naikalong with all manner of

Hindu and Christian charlatansprotection against the kind of robust scrutiny he would face in

most other democracies.

Finally, unlike Hindu bigots, such as the World Hindu Council's Praveen Togadia, whose fiercest

critics tend to be fellow Hindus, radical Muslims go largely unchallenged. The vast majority of

Indian Muslims remain moderate, but their leaders are often fundamentalists and the community

has done a poor job of policing its own ranks. Moreover, most of India's purportedly secular

intelligentsia remains loath to criticize Islam, even in its most radical form, lest this be interpreted

as sympathy for Hindu nationalism.

Unless this changes, unless Indians find the ability to criticize a radical Islamic preacher such as

Dr. Naik as robustly as they would his Hindu equivalent, the idea of Indian secularism will remain

deeply flawed.

Mr. Dhume, a columnist for WSJ.com, is writing a book on the new Indian middle class.


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