Author: Vir Sanghvi
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: October 14, 2001
Introduction: Liberal Muslims must
do something similar. They cannot allow their community to be hijacked
by the madmen and the rabble-rousers. Liberal Hindus can fight Hindu communalists.
But we can only do this if liberal Muslims also fight their own fanatics.
Forgive me if you think I'm overstating
the case but I'm beginning to get extremely concerned about the impact
of the war in Afghanistan on communal harmony in India. It is not that
I expect huge Muslim protest demonstrations of the kind we've been seeing
in Pakistan over the last fortnight. Far from it.
In fact, it is not the Muslims I'm
worried about, at all. It is the Hindus. Nearly everywhere I go, there's
always somebody who says something like, "My God! These Muslims are fanatics!"
Or "How can Muslims possibly support the Taliban?" Or, "Islam is really
a medieval religion!"
Naturally, I always protest against
the generalisations and point out that to judge Islam on the basis of what
Osama bin Laden is up to is a little like judging every Hindu on the basis
of what V Prabhakaran is doing in Sri Lanka.
Or, to use an even more telling
example: Hindu mobs dragged Sikhs out of their homes in Delhi in 1984 and
then burned them alive. But that does not mean that Hinduism is a murderous
religion. Nor does the demolition of the Babri Masjid prove that Hindus
are intolerant people who destroy other people's places of worship. Similarly,
the assaults on churches and the rapes of nuns in 1998 reflected on the
people who carried them out, not on the world's oldest religion.
And as for medievalism, let's not
develop short memories. Till around a century ago, widows were still being
thrown on their husbands' funeral pyres. And can any religion match what
Hinduism did to its dalits; people so unclean that not only could they
not be touched but that brahmins had to rush to bathe if a dalit's shadow
fell on them? Religions are not bad; people are.
But no matter how much secular and
reasonable Hindus may want to think otherwise, a climate of derision and
fear of Islam is developing.
The last time this happened was
in the late 1980's when such issues as Shah Bano, the Satanic Verses and
the alleged intransigence of the Babri Masjid Action Committee (at least
from some Hindu perspectives) led to a deep schism between Hindus and Muslims.
That schism led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, to the slaughter
of Muslims in the streets of Bombay and eventually to the rise of the BJP.
My fear is that neither Hindus nor
Muslims have learned from history. And that we will begin the new century
repeating the mistakes of the last one. What worries me most is the manner
in which all Muslims, all over the world, are being treated by non-Muslims:
as though they are somehow culpable for the death and destruction. This
is not only tragic; it is unusual, if not unprecedented, at least for us
in India.
Over the last few years Hindus and
Muslims have both learned to treat terrorists as a breed apart; as beyond
religion. There is now no doubt that the Bombay blasts were executed by
the Dawood Ibrahim gang at the urging of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence
(ISI) to take revenge on Hindus for the Bombay riots. Despite this, there
were no anti-Muslim riots in response. Both Hindus and Muslims were equally
appalled by the destruction and few Hindus (and fewer Muslims) believed
that Dawood spoke for his community.
Similarly, few Hindus see the Kashmir
problem as reflecting Hindu-Muslim tensions in the rest of India. No Indian
Muslim of consequence (not even the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid) identifies
with the terrorists - and this is despite the frequent use of Islamic imagery
(jehad etc) by the militants. The truth is that a Muslim in Bihar or UP,
(let alone a Muslim in Kerala) has little in common with a Muslim in Kashmir
and the community has sensibly rejected all attempts to turn the conflict
into a Hindu-Muslim affair.
Why, then, are we unable to make
the same sort of distinction between bin Laden and our Muslims?
Part of the answer lies in bin Laden's
rhetoric. For years, Hindu communalists have told us that Indian Muslims
are Muslims first, Indians second. Bin Laden's statements feed those fears.
He appeals to some pan-Islamic identity, to Muslims everywhere in the world,
regardless of their nationalities. His call is always for all Muslims to
rise up to fight America. And every murder is celebrated as a triumph of
Islam.
Clearly the man is a psychopath
and a massive embarrassment to Islam. But here's the funny thing: at some
level, Muslims all over the world are responding to him. You might expect
protests in Pakistan but how do you explain demonstrations in Malaysia?
How do you explain the fatwa against
Tony Blair issued by a British Muslim group? How do you explain the uproar
in Indonesia? How do you explain Imran Khan's comment that the longer the
operation takes, the more of a hero bin Laden will become to the world's
Muslims? For Hindus - and that includes secular Hindus of the sort who
wept when the Babri Masjid fell - all this is discomfiting. Is there, in
fact, a growing international pan-Islamic identity? Is this identity so
strong that even an operation against a psychopath and the world's most
barbaric regime can stir up such strong emotions?
Most important of all: are Indian
Muslims reacting as bin Laden wants them to? Why were bin Laden's portraits
on sale in Delhi's Walled City? Why has the Shahi Imam (as always, God's
gift to the Bajrang Dal) called for a jehad against America? And so on.
My concern is that if these questions are not satisfactorily answered,
relations between Hindus and Muslims will plummet again. So far, at least,
the answers that have come from educated Muslims have been deeply unsatisfactory
or incomplete.
Answer number one is framed in terms
of the standard anti-American response: America has double standards. It
was quite happy to look the other way when 6000 Iraqi children died because
of the sanctions but now treats the 6000 deaths in the World Trade Center
bombings as a holocaust. Or: it was the US itself that created bin Laden
and his ilk to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. That conflict used Islamic
imagery (mujahideen and jehad), so what right does Washington have to get
so self-righteous now?
All this is valid but unsatisfactory
because it does nothing to address the key issues of a pan-Islamic identity
and bin Laden's support among Muslims who have nothing to do with him.
Answer number two is framed in terms of the targeting of Islam. These were
acts committed by madmen, say many Indian Muslim intellectuals. And yet
one of the world's great religions is being attacked. This is a conspiracy
to link Islam with terrorism on the basis of the actions of a few individuals.
The problem with this response is
that it is not America that is identifying Islam with these attacks. It
is bin Laden himself. And the assaults were carried out by a transnational
network of men who had only one thing in common: their religion.
But there is also a third answer
even if few Muslims are giving it. This states that it is a fallacy to
imagine that Indian Muslims feel any kinship with bin Laden or the Taliban.
Every religion has its share of fanatics and crackpots who take an extreme
view. Islam is no exception. But these nutcases do not represent the majority,
just as those who burned Graham Staines did not represent Hindus.
As for the pan-Islamic identity,
this is difficult for Hindus to understand because Hinduism is not a global
religion. But take Christianity, for example. Catholics all over the world
will kneel before the Pope or prefer his edicts on divorce or abortion
to the laws of their countries. Does that mean that there is a pan-Catholic
identity that comes before patriotism? Some Hindus will retort: What about
the Shahi Imam's fatwa then? The obvious response to that is: Who is the
Shahi Imam anyway? Who does he speak for? Who appointed him as the representative
of Indian Muslims?
This is a more satisfactory answer
because it seems to adequately address many of the non-Muslim apprehensions.
Sadly, few Muslims are bothering to provide this kind of response and to
explain what is happening in their community. Instead, we get knee-jerk
anti-Americanism and daft allegations of anti-Islamic conspiracies.
The problem with India's Muslims
is that despite all our talk of secularism, the vast majority has decided
that the best way to get on in this country is to avoid drawing attention
to themselves. Even those who have done well feel more secure when they
address issues in purely secular terms and do not speak from a Muslim perspective.
I am sympathetic to their plight
but the unfortunate consequence of this stand has been that moderate voices
within the community are hardly heard. This leaves the field clear for
demagogues, rabble-rousers, mullahs and politicians. Because such people
seek to win followers by inflaming the community, their rhetoric is often
extreme and offensive.
And because there are few other
voices, these views are taken as representative of the Muslim community.
During the communally surcharged
days of the late 1980s and early 1990s, many educated liberal Muslims had
recognised that they needed to speak up so that the whole country could
hear them. Sadly, most of those voices have now lapsed into silence. And
the fanatics are the only ones we hear.
This is dangerous. One reason why
Sikhs were re-assured after the 1984 massacres was because so many Hindus
made it their mission to bring the murderers to justice. Similarly, most
of the condemnation of Dara Singh and the Bajrang Dal, in the aftermath
of the Graham Staines murder, came from liberal Hindus who denounced the
incident for what it was: a perversion of Hindu beliefs.
Liberal Muslims must do something
similar. They cannot allow their community to be hijacked by the madmen
and the rabble-rousers. Liberal Hindus can fight Hindu communalists. But
we can only do this if liberal Muslims also fight their own fanatics. Otherwise,
there is certain to be a Hindu backlash.
And all of us - Hindus, Muslims
or whatever - will pay the price.
