To keep the communal cauldron boiling, the right-wing Hindu fanatics have begun to view loudspeakers at mosques as a source of sound pollution, irrespective of their own record of DJs playing music at high decibels in temples every day. Likewise, Sikh priests play Gurbani in the wee hours daily.
Though a genuine concern, targeting only one community makes the sound pollution case lose its cause. In Muslim localities, if there are more than one mosques, they announce the call for prayers at staggered intervals. This makes the use of loudspeakers for azaan an unending game.
Indian festival calendar is busy. Starting with Makar Sankranti or Lohri in January to Basant Panchmi, Holi, Ram Navami, Baisakhi, Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Puja, Diwali, a festival is celebrated every month. And every group wants to outshine the other in their scale of celebrations. Religious processions blocking roads and devotees gathering for jagratas are common in India. Recitation of Ramayana, beating dhool and singing on high decibels is routine as well among Hindus. The contribution of Sikhs to noise pollution is no less.
While the use of loudspeakers has not been objected to when it comes to Hindu temples or Sikh shrines, targeting mosques is akin to denying Muslim their right to worship. “Everyone from mosques, to mandirs and gurdwaras use loudspeakers. As long as it was amicable and did not lead to any religious and social conflict it was working well. But, in the current political scenario, when there is so much religious hate and intolerance, it will be fair for the government to make laws binding on everyone,” says Harinderpal Singh, Sikh scholar and a former member of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee.
Scholars from the Muslim community believe that the use of loudspeakers is not prescribed in Islam. The idea is to call worshippers to the mosque. “When there are so many messaging applications available, why should a muezzin make the call? Why should more than one mosque in the vicinity make these calls,” says a Muslim scholar requesting anonymity.
Hindus objecting to azaan is not a new phenomenon. Qudrat Ullah Shahab, a prominent Urdu writer from Pakistan, mentions in Ya Khuda that before independence, Hindus would lock their pregnant women inside the houses and would beat utensils at the time of azaan, as they believed the words of azaan make women infertile.
Worryingly, such objections and protest against azaan has begun to invite state patronage. Under the current political regime in India, for a Hindu to prove himself to be holier than the rest, he just needs to bash up Muslims – or, like in the current context, protest against the use of loudspeakers.
Last year, in Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi, self-proclaimed Hindus objected to Muslims offering Friday prayers in the open, even though the prayers were taking place in the designated area. Under pressure from the state government led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the district administration had to reduce the number of prayer sites from 37 to less than 20.
In Mumbai, where the municipal polls are due next year, the BJP Hindutva is at loggerhead with Shiv Sena, whose founder late Bal Thackeray was one of the first to oppose the use of loudspeakers in mosques.
Presently, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is under pressure from his allies and the right-wing leaders to intervene in the matter. Thackeray however has rolled the ball in the centre’s court, and has appealed to the government to come up with a law on the use of loudspeakers in religious places which can be uniformly implemented.
Uttar Pradesh government headed by Yogi Adityanath meanwhile has removed more than 2,500 loudspeakers from Lucknow.
The noise pollution limit prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) is 65 decibels. But calls for prayers or other religious proceedings relayed on external speakers usually raises this decibel level to 85 or beyond.
Scholars from the Muslim community believe that the use of loudspeakers is not prescribed in Islam. The idea is to call worshippers to the mosque. “When there are so many messaging applications available, why should a muezzin make the call? Why should more than one mosque in the vicinity make these calls,” says a Muslim scholar requesting anonymity.
Contrary to this practice in South Asia, in countries like Turkey, only one mosque in a city calls for prayers, which is broadcast by other mosques. The prayers and other proceedings of the mosque take place with an internal loudspeaker so that it is audible to last man sitting in the mosque and not one on the street.
The use of loudspeakers has become a political issue between Hindus and Muslims residing in India, rather than a discussion on curtailing noise pollution. The noise pollution limit prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) is 65 decibels. But calls for prayers or other religious proceedings relayed on external speakers usually raises this decibel level to 85 or beyond.
“During festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi, Diwali and even azaan, this level crosses the permissible limits,” explains Mumbai-based sound pollution activist Dr Mahesh Bedekar, who has been requesting the court’s intervention in the matter since 2010. “What saddens me in seeing all this is that an issue that was to do with the health and wellbeing of masses has become religious and political. Both politician and religious fundamentalist have forgotten that high decibel sound does not differentiate between a Hindu or Muslim, rich or poor. It is going to affect everyone in the same proportion. Instead of using this issue to play political games, the government should implement a uniform policy to be followed by all religious and political groups.”