Author: Balbir K. Punj
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: August 20, 2002
Hindu-Muslim relations have been
the sore point of Indian political and social discourse for close to a
millennium now.
The situation became all the more
fluid, unpredictable and volatile after 1857, which has been interpreted
both as India's first war of independence and the Islamic Empire's last
war of resistance.
As expected of a coloniser, the
British exploited the Hindu-Muslim cultural faultlines tactfully leading
to the partition of India. Yet, unpredictably, the problem continued to
fester despite Partition. One of the pre-conditions for a cordial relationship
between the two communities is a free and frank debate on the contours
of their respective faiths.
The tradition of debates and discussion
has been built in Hinduism from its dateless beginning. One could challenge
its very foundation, the Vedas, and establish alternate schools that would
not be lacking in patrons amongst Hindus.
Otherwise, Buddhism and Jainism,
highly critical of the Vedas, would have been nipped in their very buds.
Hindus believe that the Vedas are inspired verses and the Bhagwad Gita
was sermonised by the Lord himself. But never in history they tried to
impose it on the people of other faiths as God's exclusive words or destroy
those from different persuasions.
Hindu society in the 19th century
saw religious reforms in which many religious dogmas were thrown to the
wind. So sati and child marriage were legally abolished and widow remarriage
was initiated. Untouchability, an offshoot of the caste-system, is now
defunct - at least nobody defends it intellectually any more. Hinduism
enjoins one the freedom to be an atheist, and to itself the space to reform
and evolve continually.
Islam for all practical purposes
has been a closed book for debates. It is held as the divine word by its
followers meant for all (sic.) humanity for all (sic.) times to come. Contradicting
its veracity and authority can only draw life-threatening fatwas from mullahs.
Islam upholds, "There is but one
Allah and Mohammed is His Prophet." Though Islamic countries come in various
shades of fanaticism and moderation, reformation has been a dirty word
especially in the Indian subcontinent. So any criticism on any aspect of
Islam to make it contemporarily relevant is run down as impermissible meddling
with the divine word.
However, post 9/11, it has become
mandatory for Islam to introspect within itself and for the rest of the
world to reassess Islam in the context of modern value systems of liberal
democracy. It is evident Islam cannot be understood through Kant, Hegel,
Marx or Stalin's view of history.
A large section of the Muslim world
has fought back 9/11 by projecting Islam not only as a votary of peace
and tolerance but also as a persecuted religion. Unfortunately, divorced
from ground reality as it is, such feel-good approach is unworkable. A
critical analysis of Islam is the need of the hour.
Two recent books with divergent
approaches sharply focus on Islam's interaction with western and eastern
hemispheres especially in the heydays of Islamic expansionism. The first
to arrive is The Shade of Swords by M.J. Akbar, ex-MP and editor-in-chief
of The Asian Age and the second is Hindu Masjids by Prafull Goradia, ex-MP
and former editor of BJP Today.
The only common denominator for
these works, is establishing the reality, that Islam is not merely a matter
of personal belief but has a religio-imperial agenda. It is legitimate
for a Muslim to fight against and subdue infidels under the flutter of
the crescent banner.
The Shade of Swords subtitled Jihad
and the Conflict Between Islam and Christianity does also shed ample light
on Islam's troubled relationship with Hinduism. It is quite a coincidence
that Islam's first armed interaction with Christian Europe and Hindu India
took place in the same year: 711 AD. The flourishing Ottoman Empire in
the Near East and the Mughal Empire in India turned themselves into jigsaw
puzzles of hegemony. However, with European colonisers casting their shadow
on the Indian subcontinent from 15th century onwards the power struggle
attained no less a Muslim-Christian dimension.
Jihad, Akbar succinctly points out,
"is the signature tune of Islamic history". Radical movements in Islam
turn to the past for inspiration with faith as their sustenance. Barring
the instance of Turkey, Muslim nations in general have not been able to
find a modern idiom for governance.
That is, they could not escape being
in the time warp of medievalism. Ironically, in the same year (1979) that
Soviet Russia intervened in Afghanistan to modernise the institutions of
this Islamic country, another fiercely secular neighbour returned to medievalism
with the Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Khomenie. America's proxy war
efforts in Afghanistan to checkmate the USSR ended up in the rise of the
Taliban Frankenstein.
Akbar's book is a must read for
those who want to understand the dynamics of Islam's encounter with the
Christian West. Reading between the lines I found Akbar's book, even though
objective, doesn't take an apologetic view of jihad. Like many other books
on the subject it does not address the question of the Arabisation of West
Asia during the seventh century - a lasting accomplishment of Islamic aggression
on the once flourishing civilisations.
Even though not discounting the
issue of temple destruction in India or forced conversion, he attributes
the spread of Islam to its Sufis rather than its swords. However, one could
not miss the message that Islam more often than not is uncomfortable with
religions other than itself and believes in assimilating rather than being
assimilated.
Prafull Goradia's bombshell book
takes the argument graphically ahead. Paradoxically titled Hindu Masjids,
it is a study of Hindu temples converted into mosques from the medieval
ages.
He is not a pioneer in this field
but can legitimately claim credit on two accounts. As against predominant
deskwork by earlier scholars in the field like Sita Ram Goel of Hindu Temples:
What happened to them? fame, he visited many of those shrines personally,
accompanied by a photographer. The book has around 68 plates of four-coloured
photographs of documentary evidence. Secondly, he is the first to distinguish
between a mosque recycled from the rubbles of a temple and a temple converted
into a mosque.
A converted mosque is "a mosque,
which is obviously still the structure of a temple and can be used by Hindus
for worship... the sanctum sanctorum has been walled up, a mehrab constructed
towards the direction of Holy Mecca and statuettes defaced."
Unlike the miasmatic secularists,
Goradia allows Muslims their right to intolerance - of breaking down temples
of pagans - and lead a life of perfect Momin. Where, however, he catches
them on the wrong foot is that their slackening of pathological hatred
towards idolatry as enjoined in the Holy Quran.
A converted mosque still bearing
overwhelming remnants of Hindu idols and figurines sketchily disfigured
and desecrated is an utterly unsuitable place for Muslims to pray. It is
like holding on to stolen property in full and continual public view. On
the other hand, they would earn tremendous goodwill of the Hindu community
if some of these prominent temples were returned to them.
Some raucous voices might protest
by saying that once a mosque is always a mosque till the Day of Judgment.
Fallacy of such statements apart, it must be pointed out that a converted
mosque can never be a de jure mosque ab initio. Moreover, there have been
historical cases of churches converted into mosques and reconverted.
The case of the seventh century
Cathedral Hagia Sofia converted into a mosque by the Turks in 1453 and
then into a museum in Kemal Attaturk's Turkey is a much-publicised one.
But Goradia points out such cases have not been wanting in India either.
The Govind Devji temple desecrated
by Aurangzeb and used as a mosque returned to the Hindu fold by British
intervention. The Rohini temple at Mahaban, near Vrindavana, has quite
a similar story to relate. A Jain temple inside Daulatabad (formerly Devagiri)
desecrated by Alauddin Khilji's commander Malik Kafur was reclaimed and
impartially changed to Bharat Mata Mandir on the liberation of Hyderabad
in 1948.
Both the books assign varying importance
to jihad and Islam's encounter with the Christian west and Hindu India.
M.J. Akbar traces the theological roots of Christian-Muslim discord: "The
very proximity of Christianity and Islam was a source of their antagonism.
Jesus said he was the son of man;
why did Christians call him the son of God? The Jews are people of the
Book as well, and closer to monotheism to Islam than Christianity; but
they are one Prophet further removed from Islam, because they have not
accepted Jesus' mission. Such volatile proximity merely needs the spark
of human conviction, or ambition, or sometimes even folly to ignite."
Prafull Goradia enunciates the cause
of trauma specific to the Hindus: "The Jews and the Muslims clash and kill
each other in the Middle East. They get hurt but neither is traumatised.
The Christians and Muslims fought the crusades no less ruthlessly. They
maimed or bled one another and destroyed churches and mosques, but it was
like battling like.
Hence there was injury but no real
trauma, no ultimate surprise. Everyone spoke, as it were, the same language
of combat and understood the legitimacy of one trying to dominate the other,
depending on who was stronger. Not so the votary of coexistence, the Hindu."
Hope these two books will help us
understand relations of the Muslims with the Judeo-Christians, people of
the Book, and Hindus, not a people of the Book, better.
(Balbir K. Punj is a BJP MP and
convenor of BJP's Intellectual Cell and can be contacted at bpunj@email.com)
