HVK Archives: Need for a shared perception
Need for a shared perception - The Observer
Mohan Guruswamy
()
10 May 1997
Title : Need for a shared perception
Author : Mohan Guruswamy
Publication : The Observer
Date : May 10, 1997
In the poem Shikwa, Iqbal complaining to Allah writes: "Your blessings are
showered on homes of unbelievers, strangers all. / Only on the poor Muslim, your
wrath of lightning falls". Elsewhere in the same poem he laments: "What
injustice! Here and now are hours and palaces to infidels given; / While the poor
Muslim is promised everything after he goes to heaven". This sense of despair
common then among the Muslims of the Gangetic plain, as it is possibly even now,
was to become fertile ground for the seeds of Muslim separatism that resulted in
partition. It is therefore one of the great ironies of our times that those who
wanted it least, got Pakistan and those that wanted it most, got left behind in
India. For it was the aggressive and fanatical Muslim elites of Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar who vociferously espoused separatism. The Muslim League was strongest in
these two regions and the theology of separatism evolved here with the
intellectual nourishment for It brewed in the halls of the Aligarh Muslim
University and by ideologies like Iqbal.
Barring a few, the Muslim separatist leadership stayed on in India and soon joined
the 'secularist' bandwagon of the Congress. In due course, nationalist Muslim
leaders made way for the prodigals. It did not take long for the Muslim community
to become a vote bank to be represented and manipulated by the former separatists
who now began to project it as a nation within a notion. Indian Muslims were
being conditioned to believe that they were Muslim Indians. The other great irony
of partition is that while an Islamic Pakistan tackled the issue of religious
minorities with sectarian single-mindedness, a democratic and secular India is
still groping about for a resolution to the problems arising out of having a large
religious minority within it. The reason owes as much to the natural dynamics
typically characteristic of democracy in which the competition for power creates
an impetus for the solidification of lesser identities, as to the single minded
and selfish pursuit of power by Congress politicians and their clones.
As the 'secular' parties continue to pander to the neo-separatists the number of
these disenchanted Muslims is growing. One of the fallout's of the chaos and
destruction in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid is that, both Hindus
and Muslims are now cognizant of the potential each community has for assuredly
inflicting upon the other a painful degree of damage. This has injected new
dynamics to the Hindu-Muslim equation. Many more Muslims are now expressing
reservations of the brand of pseudo-secularism being practised by the so-called
liberal parties.
Now that the Babri mosque has been downed, many Muslims realise that little
purpose can be served by insisting on its re-construction at that very site.
Realising this shift in mood several prominent and influential Muslims have
of-late been encouraged to suggest that the community needs to rethink this
position. But as long as the "secular" parties like the Janata Dal and the
Samajwadi Party give support to new-separatist Muslim leaders like Obaidullah
Hashmi, Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, Syed Shahabuddin and Imam Bukhari, it is
unlikely that good sense and reason will come to the fore. For Hindus the Ayodhya
site is important. For Muslims the building was. As long as Hindus are a majority
in this country no confluence of political compulsions can come about that will
allow the site to be given back to the Muslims for building a mosque there once
again. Demanding the site for this by the neo-separatists is only a provocation,
particularly as it has no theological or sentimental value except perhaps as a
symbol of the alien Muslim powers that once dominated India.
Another issue, which contributes to aggravate Hindu-Muslim ties, is the apparent
lack of concern for the national position on Kashmir displayed by the Muslim
leadership so far. If in the only region in India where Muslims are in a majority
it becomes the reason for secession, it becomes the particular responsibility of
the Muslims in the rest of India to make known their opposition to it. They must
realise that the future of Kashmir has a vital bearing upon their future in India
for it will revive the notion that India for the Hindus and Pakistan for the
Muslims. Yet Muslims leaders who are quick to make an issue over relatively
trivial issues like the movie Bombay or Salman Rushdie, prefer to remain silent on
the national concerns. This writer once asked Syed Shahabuddin to speak out on
this issue. Shahabuddin's reply was something to the extent that why should he
speak out when nothing good is happening to Muslims in the rest of India. What is
happening in Kashmir is because the fact that fundamentalism is being fanned from
across the border. By no stretch of imagination can it be said that similar
conditions prevail in the rest of the country. Muslim localities are not being
subjected to cordon And search. The army and paramilitary are not out in the
narrow streets of Ballimaran or in Kishenganj in the national capital. There is no
night curfew in the old city area of Hyderabad. Syed Shahabuddin was as usual
being provocative.
But this not just Shahabuddin's position alone. Abdullah Bukhari, Sultan
Salahuddin Owaissi and others have also expressed similar views. What is even
worse is the silence of the self styled secular Hindu leaders on this. No V P
Singh or Sitaram Kesri has called upon the Muslim community to take a position on
Kashmir with a view to positively influence the situation there. Of late a few
Muslim intellectuals have taken nationalist positions on this. More need to be
encouraged. Leaders of the main national parties have a duty to provide these
persons with appropriate platforms to extend the reach of their opinions. So far
there has been little sign of this.
Shahabuddin who is also a prolific writer of letters to editors, had in a letter
on the movie Bombay - while criticising a reviewer's rather simplistic view that
the Hindu-Muslim divide can be bridged by inter-religious marriages - wrote that
"the solution lies in mutual respect and tolerance." For once he was right. But
to ,expect mutual respect and tolerance in the face of constant and deliberate
provocation is to expect the Impossible. Sensitivity to each other's feelings and
aspirations has to be a mutual affair. An essential precondition to this is to
share a common perception of history.
Dr B R Ambedkar postulated that a shared perception of history is one of the
essentials of a common nationality. The Indian Muslim's history did not begin
with the conquest of Sind by Mohammed bin Kasim. Our common odyssey began much
earlier than that. The Indian Muslim needs to identify with that period also. The
foreign Muslim conquests of India equally victimised the Hindu as it did the
indigenous Muslim. The razing of Somnath, the wanton destruction of the great
temples at Mathura and Kashi were to symbolise the subjugation of India, just as
the Victoria Memorial or Gateway of India do of an. other era. History cannot be
obliterated, undone or even rewritten. This is where sensitivity is called for.
Mutual respect and tolerance will follow.
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