Author: Pran Chopra
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: December 4, 2001
Introduction: Muslims are indeed
victims of social prejudice. But it's not as simple as a clash of stereotypes
It is wrong to take a distorted
view of Islam or of Muslims. Or of any religion or community. To do so
deliberately is vile, and an invitation to trouble. Unfortunately, this
happens most when it is most important to avoid it. That is, in times of
tension and anxiety, when the broad brush of prejudice is most often used
to paint those we disagree with. When the issue is big, prejudice gets
a bigger brush.
The prejudices of some then become
the prism through which whole communities begin to see other communities.
But before adding another word,
I must express solid sympathy with Amar Farooqui's complaint about the
media in his article Clash of stereotypes (HT, October 30). With him I
fear that many a media room is cluttered with misperceptions or worse.
Professional values fly out of the window when figures of revenue and circulation
come in by the door.
But the issue here is not why 'someone'
should be 'stereotyped' merely because, as Farooqui's article implies,
he "adhere(s) to religious rituals fanatically". The issue is whether most
people in a community agree that all religions have the right to their
rituals in a multi-religious and multi-cultural world (or country). If
some agree but many don't then the rational few get stereotyped along with
the dominant trend. Farooqui shares this failing.
He speaks of "the real precursors
of the Taliban State" and among them he names "Mussolini's Italy, Franco's
Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Tojo's Japan, Ian Smith's Rhodesia, the apartheid
State of South Africa, and above all Hitler's Germany". All of them are
blots on history books. But in all of them the rational spoke out loud
and clear until they were silenced, and spoke out again when they could.
But can it be claimed that at least
in the countries they rule and where they have the trumpet voice of the
majority, Muslims have spoken out against "the Taliban State"? He has rightly
said the Taliban are "as ruthless and undemocratic in their pursuit of
absolute power as the Nazis were". True. But from how many Muslim platforms
in Muslim majority countries have the Taliban been denounced as such? From
how many has Pakistan been cautioned against building them up, or Saudi
Arabia against financing their training grounds?
It was a well-publicised fact that
Pakistan was rearing the Taliban behind the shield of Islam as the future
sword of its imperial ambition. Yet, so little was said against that by
recognised platforms of the faith that the Taliban became a stereotype
of the faithful.
This collective silence has become
a towering prism through which the collectivity is seen by others despite
the many Muslims who, like Farooqui, "have dedicated themselves to combating
communal politics." The dominant trend, attitudinal or "on a specific issue",
becomes the rule in the eyes of the observer and the exceptions get identified
with the rule. Those on the other side of the prism return the compliment,
and misperceptions multiply. That is why the Taliban, and what they have
done to Afghanistan, to some other countries also, and threaten to do to
still others, figure so much in the current debate in many countries, and
also in Farooqui's response to the article by Vir Sanghvi ( HT, October
14).
Farooqui is right in deploring that
a wrong view of Muslims is spreading among non-Muslims. But this ailment
has its causes. They should be faced and cured, not brushed under a carpet
of side-issues and definitions. The main cause is the process by which
a dominant trend becomes the prism of perception.
The dark events enacted on September
11 are a good illustration. No responsible person has accused any Muslim
community or country of condoning those events, because most of the authentic
Muslim voices have condemned them. A positive image of the Muslim has thus
stood out clearly on that issue. But his pre-September 11 image was far
from clear and positive, because he was ambivalent about the image of the
Taliban as the ugly Muslim.
If a "wrong view of Muslims" has
grown - and it certainly has - then the main reason is that on the whole
they are generally seen to have condoned the Taliban phenomenon and many
are seen to have even idealised it.
Individual Muslims have spoken,
with courage and eloquence, even about the role being played by the Imam
of Jama Masjid, to whom Farooqui also refers, and he must have seen historian
Mushirul Hassan's open letter to the Imam.
But are they candles in the wind
or "a broad-based political campaign" which Farooqui says "liberal Muslims"
are waging in "the cause of secularism"? Or are they more like footnotes
written in fine print, which can elucidate or qualify a point in the thesis
to which they are appended but which cannot replace the thesis?
As for example the scholarly annotations
which seek to explain the Quranic meaning of Islam or of jehad. That meaning
is wonderful. But the Taliban rejects the footnotes. The real life jehadi
does not even read them. "The campaign" is worthy of support, and must
be continued despite the mirrors of the media failing to reflect it. But
can it demolish the deceiving prism? The answer is negative yet. Hence
the danger of the 'Hindu backlash' in Vir Sanghvi's article.
What can make the answer less negative?
In the reality of mass politics, images are made by momentous issues, and
these should not be left to the mercy of "the rabble rousers" who, as Farooqui
rightly laments, "make it to the headlines". Such issues constitute occasions
when "articles/rejoinders" strike a cord and the media cannot but "care
to have a look". The world would have paid attention if the distortions
of Islam which were being manufactured in Afghanistan with Pakistani technology
had been exposed in time in and by the countries which profess truer Islam.
That opportunity is now slipping.
Some years ago, someone approached
me in the respected name of 'Ali Mian' (the late Maulana Abul Hasan Ali
Nadwi) to support and join an organisation, Muslim by name and predominantly
so by composition, in a campaign for secular solutions to the Babri masjid
and Kashmir issues. I joined it, both in public appearances and private
discussions, but soon found myself running into a devious game. What was
accepted in private discussion was frustrated in public debate.
In private the organisers accepted
my plea that while many Hindus, like me, questioned the wisdom of New Delhi's
approaches on many Kashmir related issues, they rejected the argument heard
from Pakistan that since the Kashmir Valley had a Muslim majority, it belonged
to Pakistan because India had been partitioned on the basis of religion.
The organisers agreed that Pakistan was falsifying history, and that it
could have dangerous consequences. But they always suffocated a public
debate on that issue, while I believed that such a public position by a
noted Muslim organisation on such an urgent issue would help to remove
misperceptions about the stand taken on it by Indian Muslims.
This difference persisted, and I
left the organisation. But this is only a minor illustration of a major
phenomenon: that just as misperceptions get forged in the public mind in
a heated debate, as since September 11, they are best removed when clear
stands are taken on matters of urgent concern. An Islamic plea on behalf
of Kashmir can sharpen the profile of the faith in the mind of the faithful,
and perhaps make some of them more fanatical. But it will do little good
to the cause of Kashmir or the cause of Islam. Or to the Muslim cause,
which Farooqui rightly describes as the cause of "the vast majority of
ordinary Muslims who go about their daily business", however fanatically
they may "adhere to their religious rituals."
In happier times, the procession
of events would have gone differently. The fair face of Islam would have
reflected well on the Muslims of both India and Pakistan, shown the bonds
of affinity between them in much better light to India's non-Muslims, enhanced
the glory of India's 'Muslim period', and in the process would have eased
relations between the two countries.
But when Pakistan clamped the mask
of the Taliban on the face of Islam, its shadow fell on the relations between
the two countries, and also, alas, on relations between the two communities
in India.
