New Delhi: India's Haj pilgrims will no longer be able to avail government subsidy for their pilgrimage, as the country's top court ordered that the subsidy be phased out over the next ten years. Over 100,000 Indian Muslims perform Haj by visiting the holiest Muslim site of Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. Justices Altamas Kabir and Ranjana Desai have ruled that the government's subsidy policy “is best done away with”, even as Muslim groups as well as the political class have welcomed the judgment. The Supreme Court was hearing an appeal filed by India' federal government against a lower court's judgment which directed the Indian Ministry of External Affairs to allow certain private operators to handle 800 of the 11,000 pilgrims earmarked under the VIP quota subsidized by the government. The Supreme Court bench had said that the federal government was “politicizing” Haj by permitting official delegations to accompany the pilgrims, for which the government offers huge subsidy, calling it a “bad religious practice”. Another bone of contention was that the subsidy instead of benefiting the passengers, was given to India's national carrier the Air India, whose tickets to Saudi Arabia are far more expensive that other international carriers. “Just because they have a monopoly, a Delhi to Jeddah ticket costs us $ 900 whereas Saudi Arabian airlines' ticket costs only $ 440. Where is the money going? … in the pockets of Air India,” Grand Imam of New Delhi's Jama Masjid Syed Bukhari said. Another Imam Mukarram Ahmad from Delhi's popular Fatehpuri mosque said that the Haj should be performed by the pilgrim using his own money and that availing a subsidy was not consonant with Islam. “Haj is undertaken only if you have the money, are in good health and have performed all your duties towards your family. Going on a Haj with money you borrowed from someone is absolutely prohibited,” he said.
