At long last, the centre has scrapped Haj subsidy. According to the minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the funds so saved will be used for providing education to minorities. The decision follows the 2012 Supreme Court order, asking the government to end the subsidy on the pilgrimage. It was also a long standing demand of the BJP which saw it as a form of the Muslim appeasement.
The decision comes also on the heels of the recent moves by the centre to do away with triple talaq among Muslims, even though the practice has been already invalidated by the Supreme Court in a landmark decision early last year. Both moves have politics writ large across them. But while the draft legislation on triple talaq has been roundly slammed by the Muslim community and the opposition parties, the decision on Haj subsidy has generated little criticism. In fact, withdrawal of the subsidy has been welcomed. There are several reasons for it. One is religious: There is a strong opinion in the Muslim community that Haj is a personal spiritual obligation and the state need not subsidize it. According to Islam, Haj is mandatory for only those Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking it. Theologically thus the state cannot and should not subsidize it. Such a subsidy, many rightly argue, detracts from the personal commitment and sacrifice required for such an exercise.
At the same time, the subsidy amounted to little: more than lessening the financial burden for Hajjies, it increased it. The pilgrims were made to pay a subsidized return airfare of Rs 45,000. This was a travesty. If booked in advance, the return airfare between Delhi and Jeddah would be only around Rs 30,000. So, in a sense, in the guise of subsidy, the pilgrims were made to pay Rs 15,000 more. What is more, if the global tender was called, the pilgrims would be paying even lesser airfare.
So, the subsidy hardly helped the pilgrims they, in fact, had to shell out more it benefitted loss-making Air India which has the monopoly over the transportation of Hajjies. As rightly pointed out by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the government’s decision on revoking Haj subsidy has no meaning as there was no such concession and Muslims were being cheated in its name. “The subsidy was not given to those going on Haj but it was for Air India that is running in losses, AIMPLB General Secretary Maulana Wali Rahmani said.
Though, Naqvi has talked about using the funds for the upliftment of the minority, heres hoping that the government actually does so. The saved amount could be effectively used for social activities like educating Muslim girls and opening of more schools and hostels for them. There is another dimension to the issue: now that the Hajj subsidy has been withdrawn, the union government should also stop allocating money to scores of pilgrimages undertaken by the majority community. This needs to be done, if the Haj move is not to be seen as yet another selective targeting of the Muslim community.
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