Muslim Malaise in India

Muslims during the Mughal dynasty were on top the social hierarchy, on top of the dimmers, the non Muslims, and in a land where status determined the most minor commensal and ritual rules this superior position mattered.  But by the end of the Mughal period, in the last century, the Muslims had tumbled down from the top. Their political role was terminated, their language rejected and their very identity threatened. The trauma of this downfall lies at the heart of the Muslim problem in Indian today.

To solve the problem of the Muslim malaise is to come to terms with it by confronting it squarely. The Muslim monuments- the Red Fort, the Taj Mahal, at Fatehpur Sikri, and at Sikandra-appear to mock the Indian Muslims. Their present impotence and lowly status are exaggerated by the splendor and scale of the buildings. In spite of unending tourists these monuments appear desolate. The crowds, the beggars, the pervasive stink underlying the changing times, the contemporary demotic reality swamping the imperial settings. This is illustrated nowhere better than at the entrance to the Red Fort.

When I visited the Fort, a cassette of Munni Badna hui played full volume ‘Diso Deewane’ (Disco mania) `badan se badan’ (body to body) on the loudspeaker. Garish neon’s advertised names and small shops sold plastic Taj Mahals and mildly erotic Rajput paintings. Opposite the Fort the Jamia Masjid splendid in its perfect symmetry, floats on a sea of shanty shops and huts. In the lanes the foul smells are strong, so is the sense of claustrophobia as the shops strangle the roads to the mosque, swarming up to its very staircase. Amidst the filth and squalor around the mosque is displayed the expensive Saudi chandelier under the main dome, as exquisite as it is irrelevant to the problems of the Muslims.

The Mughal’s, their passions, their women and the drama of their lives have become part of public property. The guides rattle off anecdotes and thumbnail sketches `Aurangzeb’ when describing his Moti Masjid (and opinions on him are always divided along religious lines), told the mourning procession of musicians to bury music deep so she will not arise again. He was a fanatic. And so the Mughal Empire came to a downfall. At the Panch Mahal of Fathpur Sikri, Akbar had hundreds of wives but his favorite was the Rajput princess. He was the most successful ruler. The guide’s emphasis on liberalism and secularism reflects the official philosophy of modern India.

The guide, worn out by poverty and the heat, vicariously takes pleasure in the sensual images of imperial harems and seraglios. At the Taj Mahal- Mumtaz mahal had fourteen children and died. Shah Jahan was brokenhearted. He built the Taj for her. He wished to build a black one for himself but his son Aurangzeb jailed him he died. History is reduced to one dimensional character, to bazaar stereotypes. Here the borders between fantasy and reality are blurred.

The history of the Muslims in India is illustrated through ruin lying atop ruin, crumbling capital on crumbling capital, disused mosques and neglected graveyards. The environment does not encourage confidence; Muslim history is never more poignant than in Delhi, once the heart or Muslim India. Nursing the sense of injury, Muslim are sensitive to suggestions that reflect imagined or real cultural grievances. Sheikh Zafar, the last Mughal emperor, lies buried under a public latrine in spite of official protests by Dr Anjum, President of the Zaug Research Institute. Goats deposited their faeces on the grave of Mirza Ghalib, possibly the greatest Urdu poet; Such facts generate in the Muslim a feeling of being deliberately neglected if not deliberately injured.

Devoid of contemporary power and still in search of his destiny, the Muslim tends to live in the past. He clings to the fantasy provided by it. But he is also crushed by the burden of this pat, and it creates in him emotional anorexia.