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HVK Archives: Religion is often a smokescreen for political oppression

Religion is often a smokescreen for political oppression - The Times of India

L K Sharma ()
May 1, 1998

Title: Religion is often a smokescreen for political oppression
Author: L K Sharma
Publication: The Times of India
Date: May 1, 1998

It is a book of stories," writer VS Naipaul announces in the
preface of his new travelogue, Beyond Belief, during an interview
with L K Sharma in London. The writer keeps emphasising this
point. Soon one knows why. A journalist from India rings up to
know his opinion on Pakistan. am not an analyst. It is for the
reader to find out." Naipaul tells him. Beyond Belief is about
his "Islamic excursions among the converted people" and as it
happens, when Naipaul holds up the mirror to Pakistan, the
picture is not rosy. The book is a sequel to Among the Believers
which was published in 1981. Naipaul revisited the same countries
-Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia, collecting life stories.
He allows the people to speak, interrupting rarely. The main
object of his exploration this time is the pressure of the
cultural identity of non-Arab Muslim peoples The theme fits
beautifully into his larger exploration of being cut off from the
roots in different ways. As he told a gathering of students in
his native Trinidad more than two decades ago: "It's very good to
ask yourself who you are and why you're here and what has made
you.

Q: When you decided to revisit the four countries, what was your
brief to your self?

A: I go with a blank mind. I set out to learn. I do not know the
end. When I went for the earlier book, I knew nothing about
Islam. The people whom I went to were telling me what their
faith was. Even then, I travelled among the converted people,
the non-Arab people, but I did not make a big point about this in
the earlier book. This time, I understood it is very important.
The theme of conversion is the prime thing. It interests me when
I look at the classical world too, to see how the crossover
occurred there, from the classical world to the religion of
Christianity. This is an extension of that. Here it is all very
recent and it is still happening.

You have captured a sense of loss among the converted. Their
denial of their identity, a violation of their original forms of
society and the resultant neurosis and nihilism and easy
inflammability.

Yes, what I found from the people of my stories has been put in
my own words in the preface: "a convert's world view alters. His
idea of history alters. He rejects his own; he becomes, whether
he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story. The convert has to
turn away from everything that is his. The disturbance for
societies is immense. People develop fantasies about who and what
they are."

I can see the book attracting a lot of extra-literary criticism.

If the book generates some heat it is because Arabs try to
pretend that they do not look down upon the converted people and
the converted people insist that they are Arabs. The latter have
to accept a second class status and they have no means of getting
out of it. This is part of the neurosis.

Your exploration this time was more focused?

The last time I was finding out from them about their faith. This
time, I was finding out about their lives and their experience. I
was not asking what their religion was. I was trying to enter
their life. These are

true stories. That is why they can say that these are bad stories
but they cannot say these are false stories. I never marshal the
material afterwards. The thing is composed as I travel. Every day
there is a discovery. I go on learning. I was not looking for
change. I just wanted to have a second look. When I went in 1979,
I accepted what was said about the importance of religion to the
state.

When I went again for this book, I found it is true that religion
is important but religion is also a great smokescreen for
dreadful political oppression and exploitation and its own
misuse. There are people still being attracted to a revealed
faith because, as I found in the case of a Chinese in Malaysia,
they are looking for larger philosophical ideas and are not
content with their kitchen gods. Revealed religions made their
impact because of their social content. They talked about noble
things, brotherhood, charity. that was, of course, at the
beginning. Now what is happening is different. Religion is being
used as a political weapon or as means of threat, as part of
powerplay, internal and at times, external. But it is not my
business to draw conclusions. Every reader draws his own
conclusion. My business is to get the stories, not to deal with
profound questions. The reader should not look for conclusions.

During your travels, do you consciously seek material to
reinforce any core thesis?

You have no idea what you are going to find. Many meetings are
chance meetings. I am completely with the people. They talk to me
easily The case of a disfigured woman takes me to a court in
Pakistan. There, I don't know what to do but then the man I am
talking to, that is what I am looking for. His dismay, his
disillusion. His aspirations. That is the story. In Iran, I am
checking out the consequences of the revolution. In Pakistan, I
wanted to see how the Muslim homeland worked. Well, it has not
worked out. Then I find out why. It will be wrong for me to say
it has worked out. Indonesia is a tyranny. People are trying to
achieve an industrial revolution in a strange way. I can't
understand it. I try to follow it. In Iran, the war in the name
of Islam has left terrible consequences.

Are you clinical in your approach to the material? And what did
you find in Pakistan?

I found interesting stories. Clinical is not the right word. I am
compassionate. I am Sympathetic. I wish to understand. The people
have to tell me what they want. In Pakistan, they are saying they
have nothing to do with the subcontinent and that they are part
of some thing else. Here is a Muslim country which after its
creation in 1947 promptly became a state of manpower exports.
Lots of people came to Britain. The idea of a state for Muslims
began to undo itself very quickly. When I met people in Karachi,
I found them very strange. The way they spoke, at first, they
described a perfect world. Everything happening was good. The
disturbances in the streets were good. The life has been a
success. Then the other thing came out slowly. That the life was
terrible. The people did not know whether they would reach home
safely in the evening. The teacher feels that his whole life has
been wasted. That comes out at the end of his talk. The people
were so upset, wounded. They talked in a strange way. I did not
make that up. I found that.

You say this book takes the story on from Among the Believers. I
feel it takes the story on from many of the your previous books
too. The larger story about displacement, the loss of identity,
robbed memories and the robbed past. A fraudulent and tragic
existence. Remember the tragic story in A Way in the World of
some one hiding Hindi film song cassettes in his bag because he
is masquerading as some one else? There is forced denial in the
new existence. There are all kinds of converts. I see a pattern
of unity in the body of work.

Perhaps you are right. Yes, this book has come out of that.


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