Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 26, 2002
American journalist Daniel Pearl's
carefully planned and ruthlessly executed murder by men who felt no compunctions
about filming the gory episode, is a grim reminder that both the ideology
and ideologues behind the New York tragedy are alive and kicking. In our
part of the world, the same forces pulverized the majestic Bamiyan Buddhas
and persecuted Hindus and Sikhs in Kabul, and continue to sponsor the ethnic
cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus and brutalities towards Hindus in Bangladesh.
America rallied completely behind
President Bush and enabled him to mount a response that saw the exit of
Afghanistan's hated Taliban, and may yet see Osama bin Laden and Mulla
Omar brought to justice on US soil. In India, by contrast, public discourse
is so perverted that even after the daring assault on Parliament on December
13, political parties have appreciated nothing more than enhanced security
for politicians!
Worse, for several months we have
been subjected to daily haranguing from Leftist historians against presenting
a historically correct version of the Islamic invasion of India. Rather
than admit the distortions in their books, these academics indulge in sanctimonious
drivel about composite culture (whatever that means) and berate those who
uphold India's pre-Islamic past as a glorious epoch of spiritual and material
progress.
Unfortunately for Marxists, the
myth of the Aryan invasion has been too conclusively debunked by archaeological
excavations and independent western scholars to carry public conviction.
So they have concentrated their energies to rebut charges that the medieval
era was an age of atrocities against native Indians. They do not answer
eminent Western scholars such as Andre Wink and Cynthia Talbot who repudiate
R.S. Sharma's portrayal of the pre-Islamic period as India's "dark age"
(which presumably ended only when the golden glow of Islam touched Sind).
Muslim activists have also jumped into the fray, criticizing the "desire
to depict Muslim rule as barbaric" (Pioneer, 21 February 2002). There are
admonitions against "stereotyping" Islam as red in tooth and claw, even
though the new textbooks have not yet been published!
Apologists for Islam would do well
to introspect over how it got so stereotyped despite decades of state-sponsored
doctoring of Indian history. As a schoolgirl, I remember chanting the myth
of Akbar being the first great nation-builder of India, the next legendary
'great' after him being, of course, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nothing good is said
about native heroes, and attempts to cut valorous communities like the
Jats, Sikhs and Marathas to size persist unabashedly.
Despite this asymmetrical representation,
the story of Islam as a religion of peace has had few takers in public
consciousness. Indeed, the memory of History has now returned to haunt
the Left-secularists and Muslim apologists. They would do well to ponder
if there is something in the fundamentals of the faith that is responsible
for this negative imagery, as Ibn Warraq has suggested.
In the wake of Sheikh Omar's revelations
in Karachi that top fundamentalists had quit Afghanistan prior to the American
bombing, it is obvious that highly-driven, organized, and richly-funded
terrorist cells are fully intact in many parts of the world. The disclosures
make it clear that the United States is a top target of Islamic fundamentalists.
Britain and the western world have consented to the American action against
fundamentalism precisely because they also expect to be targeted; India,
of course, is its longest-suffering victim. In the face of this reality,
it is difficult to sustain the argument that the bin Ladens and Omars are
aberrations and do not represent the 'true' spirit of Islam.
Nevertheless, I have always resisted
the temptation to interpret the Koran, as this is open to the charge of
misinterpretation, even falsification. In the wake of the events of September
11, a whole industry of Islamic theologians and apologists has sprouted
to prove the 'peaceful' nature of Islam. Another group is equally active,
picking up verses 'proving' its violent nature. I have not bothered with
either group.
Still, like some writers, I have
tried to understand the faith by taking a look at the early Muslim community
which lived close to the Prophet, and witnessed and experienced his creation
of the new community, and the compilation of the holy book and other sayings
and acts of the Messenger. But here itself, the mind staggers when confronted
with the treatment meted out to members of the Prophet's own family. I
think Muslims can no longer evade a close scrutiny of some aspects of their
tradition, just as other religions have examined (and reformed) themselves
in times of crisis. This is an exercise they must undertake themselves.
As an outsider, one can comment
on external aspects of the faith and its encounter with other cultures.
Here, one can hardly escape the historical fact of Muslim violence against
civilian populations of other religions from the very origin of Islam in
the seventh century. Beginning with the Jews, the introduction of Islam
has been a bloody affair from North Africa to India. Alas for the secularists,
in India court historians, chroniclers, and even autobiographies of the
rulers richly documented the scale of the genocide and bloodshed.
What is disturbingly relevant for
the modern world is that the Islamic past continues to spill over as present
continuous. Most religious violence in the world today is rooted in the
Muslim world. This is aggravated by the fact that contemporary Islam continues
to breed holy warriors who do not recognize national boundaries and cheerfully
wander from conflict to conflict fighting the enemies of the faith - Bosnia,
Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kashmir.
Scholars believe the problem lies
in the origin of Islam, which, unlike other faiths, was simultaneously
a political and religious movement. Unlike Judaism or Christianity, Islam
never had a religious history separate from its political history. Hinduism
has no known beginning, but has always distinguished between the authority
of the king and the sage.
The early separation of the religious
and political realms gave Hinduism its unique, unprecedented tradition
of tolerance, and made India the natural haven for the persecuted throughout
the centuries. As an aside, I may state that I feel sad that some of the
communities that took refuge in India and thrived and prospered here, have
not been grateful, and have tried to read lessons in liberalism to Hindus
fed up with militancy and fundamentalism.
Anyway, the prior experience of
a religious community without political power enabled Judaism and Christianity
to adjust to the Enlightenment concept of separation of church and state.
The idea of a secular civil society grew, and these two monotheistic Middle
Eastern faiths managed to survive without support from a theocratic state.
The reverse is true of Islam - political and military (and now also economic)
power is what advances and sustains the religion, and jihad is an intrinsic
component of the faith.
America, Russia, Europe and Israel
recognize that a military and economic confrontation with militant Islam
is inevitable. The diplomatic challenge is to contain the conflict to manageable
theatres of war. The economic challenge is to prevent recurrence of the
oil blackmail of the nineteen seventies, which has been accomplished with
Russian cooperation. But the real contest is intellectual. This battle
has now been joined. As more incidents of violence occur in various parts
of the world, apologists of Islam will find it increasingly difficult to
demand tolerance for a creed that seems fundamentally incapable of co-existence
with other faiths.
