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Is
there a tacit support for separatism
M
V Kamath
At
a massive rally recently called by the Jamait-ul-Ulema-i-Hind, a
decision was taken that he Muslims should have a separate political
party of their own. It is, to say the least, a most unwise decision
and one hopes that the Jamait will rescind it. The argument is that
Muslims have no friends and that they have to look after themselves,
that their problems remain unsolved and their needs unattended to.
Their approach is one of total despair.
The Muslims in India
seem to be a disillusioned lot. But the biggest mistake any
commentator can do is to presume that Muslims are a monolithic
community, that all the two hundred odd million Muslims think alike,
feel alike and react alike and that they are at the mercy of the
majority community.
The Muslims are as
much divided among themselves as are Hindus, that among them there are
plenty of rich communities as there are among Hindus and that the
various communities do not necessarily inter-marry or have total
social inter-relationships. And not many realise that the experiment
of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in Kerala is totally
irrelevant in the wider Indian context considering that nowhere else
in the country are there as m any contiguous districts with a
preponderant Muslim population.
In recent months a
great deal has been written about the fate of the Muslim s in Gujarat
but one hardly has come across a sociological study of the Gujarat
Muslims and their behavioural patterns vis-a-vis Gujarat Hindus. A pro
per study might bring out some interesting and significant facts which
in t he past, have been brushed under the carpet. There are many
Muslims in India -not to speak about Gujarat State to whom history
stepped in 1857. The mind-set of the Muslims in India has been
well-described by Daniel Pipes in h is excellent study: In The Path of
God: Islam and Political Power.
Writes Pipes:
"(For Muslims) power came first; ruling the Hindus became so
routine that political ascendance came to be seen as a Muslim
prerogative; hard as it was for Muslims to accept British dominion,
this was at least mitigated by the fact of the Hindus being subjugated
as well." When the country was divided the Muslims of independent
India lived in an area historically part of Dar-al-Islam but with
ancient ties to a non-Islamic civilization ... This presented the
Muslims of India with a unique dilemma."
As Wilfred Cantwell
Smith put it in `Islam in Modern History', "The question of
political power and social organization, so central to Islam, has in t
he past always been considered in yes-or-no terms. Muslims have either
had political power or they have not. Never before have they shared it
with others... The Muslims of India in fact face what is a radically
new and profound problem; namely how to live with others as equals.
This is unprecedented ; it has never arisen before in the whole
history of Islam." It is this psychological mind-set that has
been the cause of so many `communal' riots.
Hindus would be happy
to share power with Muslims if the latter would only function not as
Muslims, but as Indians. The trouble with a large number of Muslims
seem to be that they want to remain Muslims first, Indians afterwards.
It is this which many Hindus, frequently dismissed by secularists as `
fundamentalists' resent, and can't come to terms with. The Vishwa
Hindu Parishad, thus, would want all Indian citizens, whether Hindus,
Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs or Parsis, to accept `cultural
nationalism' which ordains that every religious community must
consider India as punyabhoomi (sacred land) instead of Mecca or
Jerusalem. No other community finds it hard to do so except the
Muslims. Instead of accepting the VHP suggestion, the Jama at-i-Islami
Hind has been on the offensive.
At its 1981 meeting
the Jamaat gave a call for massive conversion campaigns to increase
the Muslim population in India. Writes Pipes: "This goal can b e
explained in light of the inability of Indian Muslims to pursue
autonomist or legalistic goals, but it aroused strong Hindu
reactions." Can the VHP be blamed for its stand on cultural
nationalism?
There is something
absurd in the approach of many Muslim and `secular' leaders in India.
They want Hindus to be `secular' while condemning the fundamentalism
of Muslims. To our secularists it is wrong on the part of Hindus to
demand a Common Civil Code for all people, irrespective of their
caste, creed, community or religion.
The VHP, which stands
for a large percentage of Hindus in the country asks what's wrong if
it demands that all people irrespective of their religion recognise
India as their punyabhoomi? Isn't India their land and the land of
their ancestors for generations? Why should Muslims insist on a
separate identity of their own, insist of stressing their identity in
various ways like wearing distinct skull caps and getting their woman
folk wear burqas? Ca n we imagine an India where it would be
impossible to distinguish a Hindu from a Muslim as even now it is not
all that easy to distinguish an educated Hindu from an educated
Christian or Parsi or Jain or Buddhist?
What do Muslims gain
by their insistence on total separatism? not just political but
emotional as well? When India was under the political domination of
Islam throughout the Moghul rule, Muslims had no difficulty in
adjusting to Hinduism in many meaningful ways. In his book Gujarat: A
Political Analysis, Nagindas Sanghavi says that there was a time when
"mutual interpenetration of concepts, of theological
belief-systems, of religious rituals and social ceremonials and even
of god-heads" had proceeded "to an amazing extent".
Such admixture included marital relations. Though Kabir never wrote in
Gujarati, the largest single congregation of various sects of
Kabirpanthis flourished in Gujarat. The imperceptible but continuous
process of assimilation and integration heading toward a fusion of
Hinduism and Islam, according to Sanghavi, "abruptly halted and
even reversed" after the arrival of British rule in India.
Muslims now show
"an irrational suspicion against every change or
innovation." Notes Sanghavi: "Their aloofness from political
parties and an almost total absence of any accredited leadership
elites have created a vacuum which is often filled up by anti-social
elements who are responsible for the criminalisation of approach to
the nagging problems of backwardness and deprivation.
The crime rate per
thousand is much higher in Muslim community as compared to other
communities because the ambitious and the able elements in Muslim
community fail to secure an outlet for their energies and
aspirations."
That, in effect,
explains Godhra. The correct approach for Muslims, then, i s to give
up their separatism and to mix with Hindus and show by example an d
precept that they accept India as their punyabhoomi. This does not
mean t hat they should not look to Mecca as their lodestar. But being
Muslim should not mean alienation from the majority community and its
customs.
In Indonesia it is
not considered unIslamic to have a distinctly Sanskrit name given to
Muslim children. Consider such names as Soekarno, Suharto; presently
the Indonesian president is Meghavati Soekarnoputri and no name could
be more Sanskritic in origin.
Muslim artists
regularly play the Ramayana all round the year with zest. Bu t why go
to Indonesia? Right here in India some of the most distinguished
musicians, many of them Muslims, have had no difficulties in offering
homage to Saraswati before the start of a programme.
In Indonesia,
incidentally, the name of former President Wahid's second daughter is
reported to be Saraswati.
Whether
fundamentalist Muslims like it or not, India is their home as it ha s
been the home of their Hindus ancestors. There can be no running away
fro m the fact. Nor is there any getting away from the fact that only
syncretism can save Indian Muslims from themselves; separatism puts
them permanently in a bind and damages their growth. Fashioning a
separate Muslim political party will take the Muslims nowhere; indeed
it will only push them into oblivion.
It was all very well
for Jinnah to form the Muslim League, but then he had the tacit
support of the ruling British who believed in divide and rule. In a
predominantly Hindu state, the Muslim must learn to blend himself
economically and culturally with his Hindu fellow citizens. The Muslim
must join the BJP in large numbers and try to influence it.
One might condemn the
BJP as being `majoritarian' but Hindus, whether anyone likes it or
not, are in a majority and they have every right to defend it . The
Muslims in Uttar Pradesh made a big mistake by taking a confrontation
ist approach towards the BJP by joining Mulayam Singh Yadav's
Samajwadi Party. It has done them no good.
In today's India
confrontationism does not pay, not in a society that has become
increasingly self-conscious of its Hinduhood. After a thousand years
of servitude, Hindus are becoming increasingly aware of their cultural
and religious heritage and are out to enlarge upon it in a meaningful
and significant way. And no power on earth certainly not the Leftists
of all hues - can stop them.
To think that by
denigrating Hinduism one can make India safe for Muslims o r the
minorities is to live in a world of self-delusion. Muslims must look
at Hindus and Hinduism in a positive and constructive way which alone
will bear good results.
That holds good even
for Pakistan and Bangladesh, two artificial states. India alone is
eternal. When Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh as Muslims in India
learn to share power with Hindus, all will benefit. That was how Akbar
prospered. That is as much a lesson for the Jamaat as it is for
Musharraf. The enemy of Muslims is separatism. When will they ever
learn that simple but historic lesson?
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