Muslims should...

Balbir K Punj

Ever since the unfortunate Godhra incident, Hindu-Muslim relations have come under focus in public discourse.

I have seen numerous articles, books and pontifications from various platforms (television debates, seminars and even in Parliament) by "secularists" telling Hindus in general and the Sangh Parivar in particular on how bad they are and advising them on the way they should deal with the minorities, particularly Muslims. Interestingly, all of them were silent on any advice to Muslims! It always takes two to make up or start a conflict.

On the very face of it, the approach of the secular cabal is dishonest and aimed at pitting one community against another. However, Communal Rage in Secular India by Rafiq Zakaria (Popular Prakashan, Mumbai, September 2002) is a "seeming exception" to all that.
The former MP, legal exponent, educationist, and Islamic scholar with a public life spanning across six decades, is one of the "nationalist Muslims" who had opposed Jinnah's Two-Nation theory. His corpus of 15 books includes his famous reply to Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses published as Muhammed and the Quran.

In his latest book, like always and unlike the secularists, Zakaria doesn't pass on the charge of communalism solely on Hindus and condone Muslims. He has advice for both. According to Zakaria, "Communalism both in its Hindu and Muslim garb is really a product of the British rule; the new rulers, with their colonial outlook, sowed the seed slowly and gradually. The two communities drifted apart; this, in turn, proved beneficial to the rulers…" He further says: "As for the leaders of the Muslims, they raised non-issues, fomenting religious controversies which had little to do with the welfare of their co-religionists, these unfortunately brought them into conflict with the Hindus..."

What Zakaria misses here is that in their ill-conceived pursuit, the "leaders of Muslims" were always inspired and helped by the "secularists." To get an objective view of the Hindu-Muslim problem, one has to take a peep into history. Islam's arrival through navigational trade on the shores of South India was a non-event. Only when it came as an invading force in the medieval ages through the northern borders, it clashed with a non-conflicting Hinduism. The murky history of the medieval ages marked by destruction/conversion of temples, butchery, rape/abduction of Hindu women as recorded by Muslims chroniclers is well publicised.

Medieval India witnessed a clash of civilisations in which Muslims generally heavily dominated. With the advent of Shivaji and Guru Gobind Singh (both secular rulers; and Shivaji is described so by Zakaria in his book), chances of a Hindu victory were restored to parity, and by the 18th century, indigenous power represented by Maratha-Sikh-Jat-Rajput etc had begun to overwhelm aliens both territorially and culturally.

The last of the Mughal emperors were perfectly at home with the Indian ethos. A distinct brand of Indian Islam, which could harmonise with other faiths, was evolving fast. Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh was culturally light years away from Aurangzeb. Over 95 per cent of Muslims in India were converts. I believe, if this interplay had not been disrupted by the British, the Muslims would have been subsumed in the culture of the land of their forefathers while being true to their faith.

The last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was a pensioner of the Marathas. In the second Anglo-Maratha War (1803-05), the Maratha forces lost to British General Lake in the Battle of Patparganj. A small stone memorial to mark the war still stands at the Noida Golf Course, close to Delhi.

The British had taken much of India not from the Muslims, but the Hindus. In 1857, the first shot was fired by a Brahmin, Mangal Pandey. Most rulers who joined this first war of independence were Hindus. But their purpose was to restore Bahadur Shah "Zafar" II on throne as the emperor of India. The very first order, Bahadur Shah "Zafar" issued, on regaining the throne of Delhi for a short time was to ban cow slaughter and make it a capital punishment.

The situation, however, changed when the British in order to safeguard their imperial interests, decided on a policy of "divide and rule" and to reverse the process of interplay of two streams. Ironically, Gandhiji (who died for the cause of Hindu-Muslim unity) ended up extending this policy in his efforts to get Muslims to his side in his struggle against the British. Gandhi's non cooperation movement had its origin in the Khilafat movement and not in the Congress movement for swaraj.

The Khilafat movement is said to have begun on October 27, 1919, the day observed as Khilafat Day all over India. Non cooperation was actually envisaged as a strategy to force the British to redress the Khilafat wrong at Istanbul, at a Khilafat Conference in Calcutta on March 10, 1920. Satyagraha Andolan or the non cooperation movement for Indian swaraj came in September 1920. B.R. Ambedkar in his famous book Thoughts on Pakistan, 1940 (reprinted as Pakistan or The Partition of India, 1946) writes: "The movement was started by Mahomedans. It was taken up by Mr Gandhi with a tenacity and faith which must have surprised many Mahomedans themselves. There were many people who doubted the ethical basis of Khilafat movement and tried to dissuade Mr Gandhi from taking any part in a movement the ethical basis of which was so questionable. But Mr Gandhi had so completely persuaded himself of the justice of the Khilafat agitation that he refused to yield to their advice."

Khilafat movement soon turned into what are now known as Mopla riots, and claimed the lives of thousands of innocent Hindus at the hands of Muslim mobs. In spite of all his compromises, Gandhiji failed to get Muslims walk by his side. Instead, the rabid elements amongst them emerged as leaders of the community and the sad trend continues till date. The Thirties and Forties witnessed a more virulent brand of convoluted "secularism." To the Indian Communist Party (or the Indian Chapter of Communist International till 1943), India was not a nation, Hindu self-respect was an anathema and pandering to radical Islam a strategy.

The late E.M.S. Namboodiripad, who as chief minister of Kerala in independent India created a Muslim-majority district of Mallapuram, used to hold rallies in Kerala in the Forties shouting "Pakistan zindabad (long live Pakistan)". The communists supplied Jinnah with all the intellectual arguments which he needed in his war, seeking the creation of a theocratic state of Pakistan out of the blood soaked body of united India. Let me come back to the book and why I call it only "a seeming exception." Scholar on Islamic studies as he is, Zakaria has done well to clear the cobweb of misconception on certain injunctions of Quran. Condemning Godhra, he says, about its perpetrators: "They bear Muslim names but are illiterate and absolutely ignorant of the teachings of Islam."

Whatever might be the religious injunction what matters is how it is implied. I can dig out most unsavoury passages from the Old and New Testaments prescribing most inclement behaviour towards pagans. But why is that Hindus have nothing to fear physically from Jews or Christians? And why is it that from the learned late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran to the illiterate Ghanci Muslims of Godhra, from the Yemeni scion Osama bin Laden to the poor Afghans, are all misinterpreting Islam, with disastrous results for the world? If a certain religion is liable to be more misinterpreted than interpreted even in the 21st century there is something to be wary about it.

Ordinary Muslims are as good as any other human beings but the present structure of Islam motivates the faithfuls to indulge in violence against the "Kafirs." This issue needs to be addressed to, in the interest of global peace. Zakaria mentions the terms Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Harab only once in the book (p. 117) and dismisses them as erroneous concepts. Is it not a fact that our Islamic neighbour Pakistan has made its territory "physically Hindu-free" and Bangladesh is aiming to do so by 2020? Demographic balance is being altered in border districts of Assam making it an extension of Bangladesh. And it is a truism that "secularists" loathe to admit that wherever Muslim population increases Hindus or other minorities are squeezed out.

Making Muslim-dominated lands Hindu free, expelling Hindus out of Muslim-majority area and increasing their sphere of influence - if this is not a modern version of Dar-ul-Islam then what is it? Zakaria candidly admits that "the miseries" that the Muslims are "undergoing in South Asia today are of their making." He further says, "if the Jihadis continue with their suicidal operations and Pakistan refuses to give up its anti-Hindu stance then as General Musharraf himself told the Pakistanis, the fate of Indian Muslims will be jeopardised." He further says: "Had it not been for the secular temper of a large number of Hindus and the broad humanism which is the kernel of Hinduism, the extermination of Indian Muslims would have been easily carried out." But where do we go from here?

According to Zakaria, "Indian Muslims must be realistic and carve out their own future in such a way that they can live in peace and harmony with the Hindus..." He impresses upon the Muslims that "they must introspect and reorient their attitude towards the Hindus with a view to build the bridges between the two communities."

I am sure if Zakaria spends time with the RSS chief he will have a pleasant surprise - for both are likely to be in complete agreement with the analysis of, and the solution to, the problems. I see very little possibility of Hindu-Muslims relations improving until and unless the "secularists" are isolated in public discourse and disowned by the Muslims.