Of all the world’s religions, Islam is the most misunderstood and misinterpreted. Vicious distortions of Islam have appeared with alarming frequency during the last two decades. Two subtle rhetoric aberrations further cloud the true perception of Islam. The first is the use of term “fundamentalist” to describe those who engage in violence. The term is transmutation from Christian thought where its meaning is well settled and precise. There it refers to those who believe in the literal, rather than metaphorical interpretation of the Bible. In Islam, all believers are fundamentalists, as far as the belief in the basic principles is concerned. Therefore to refer to those who commit acts of violence as “fundamentalists” is to insult the whole Muslim community as also to make a deliberate effort to distort the image of Islam.
The second is the expensive use, especially in the print media, of the term “Muslim” to describe violent acts. Terrorism knows no religious limitations. A few examples are illustrative of its universality and of the double standards used in the media for identifying its perpetrators. The genocide of Bosnian Muslims by the Christians was never lebelled by the media as an act of orthodox Christians. Irish Republican Army has repeatedly bombed targets not only in Northern Ireland but also in London and elsewhere, but their acts of violence have never been described by the media as Catholic. Hitlerian torture of Jews and LTTE’s violence similarly has never been identified with religion.
It is therefore important to understand Islam in its correct perspective without any predetermined notions and prejudices and the challenges before Indian Muslims with this backdrop in the next Millennium.
No one can deny that Partition is primarily responsible for what has happened to Indian Muslims and for this their leadership was largely responsible. But how long should the past be allowed to wreck the lives of millions, generation after generation? And how long will the sins of their ancestors be revisited on their progeny? The fact remains that, despite sixty years of the so-called practice of secularism in India, there is deep prejudice against them in India not only among the Hindu communalists but also among the so-called secularists; this prejudice cuts across castes and classes among Hindus. Plenty has been written about it; blame has been assigned to one quarter or another but solutions have evaded us. In fact, some political parties, before as well as after Partition, have tried to thrive on widening the divide. What we have to decide is whether this divide is really unbridgeable. It is necessary, therefore, to first comprehend its genesis if we have to look ahead. And for that we must pause and study the whole gamut of this relationship from its beginning in the hoary past to the present times.
To start with, there was first the Arab rule; but it was confined only to Sind and Multan; it continued for about two centuries. Stanley Lane-Poole has described it as just “an episode in the history of India and Islam, a triumph without results”. Likewise the Ghaznavid rule in the Punjab was an interlude, managed by a Hindu governor, appointed by Mahmud, who, after his loot, never stayed behind. Even the Ghurides, despite the military exploits of Qutb-ud-din Aibak, could not extend their dominion beyond north India. It was Allauddin Khilji who, according to R.C. Majumdar, “for the first time established Muslim suzerainty over nearly the whole of India.” After him, it disintegrated until the ruler of another dynasty, Muhamad Tughlaq, was able to expand his empire upto the farthest end in the south. He ruled for only ten years. Hence, the period of really effective Muslim rule over most of India from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries was hardly of thirty years’ duration.
Until the advent of the Mughals, there was only a semblance of Muslim rule which covered some part of India or the other, one dynasty replacing the other and with an occasional vacuum from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries when most of India was ruled by various Hindu rajas. It is important to bear this in mind because the impression persists that for seven hundred years, from the invasion of Mohammad bin Qasim in 711 to the fall of Ibrahim Lodi in 1526, Muslims ruled over the whole of India, indulging in persecution and oppression of Hindus, destroying their temples, ill-treating their women-folk and extorting all kinds of taxes from them. This myth has now been successfully exploded; but it needs to be stressed in our textbooks, to dispel the prejudice it has created against Muslims in the Hindu mind.
Yet, at no time under the Delhi Sultanate did relations between Hindu officers and the Muslim ruling elite sour, nor did the general atmosphere of peace and harmony between the two communities worsen. In the capital, there were periodical disturbances, but elsewhere the provincial kshatraps who had assumed independent power were able to maintain good relations between Hindus and Muslims. The Bhakti movement also helped in this process. Governors of provinces became patrons of this inter-communal fusion. Zayn al-Abidin (1420-70) in Kashmir, the Husayn Shahi dynasty (1493-1539) in Bengal, the Bahmanis in the South, the Adil Shahis in Bijapar (1580-1686), the Nizam Shahis in Ahmednagar (1480-1686), the Imad Shahis in Berar (1410-1568), the Barid Shahis in Golconda (1512-1687): they were all the upholders of Hindu-Muslim collaboration. Hence, from the centre to the provinces, it was more the spirit of amity than that of hostility that prevailed.
Despite the contradictory nature of Islam and Hinduism, there was much in common between them which the sants and the sufis emphasized. In the course of time, the two religions influenced each other in several ways. Concerted efforts were made by Hindu scholars to study Islam and Muslim scholars studied the Vedas and Upanishads. A number of religious texts in Sanskrit were translated into Persian and the Quran, the Hadith and other books of Shariah, into Sanskrit. Under many Muslim rulers, cow slaughter was banned and exchanges between maulvis and pandits were encouraged. Likewise, under the Hindu rajas, Ibn Battuta found prosperous Muslim merchants. Arabs, who had the monopoly in the trade between Malabar and the Red Sea, were treated generously by the Zamorin of Calicut.
It was as a result of the intermingling between Muslim soldiers and Hindu traders that a new language developed which later took the form of Urdu. Malik Muhammad Jaysee specialized in writing on Hindu life and traditions while several Hindus wrote on the life of the Prophet, none disparagingly. Raj Bhana Mal’s chronicles are in chaste Persian. Likewise, Amir Khusrau popularized through his poems, the Hindu ethos. He wrote in both Persian and the native language which was a mixture of Sanskrit, Persian and Khari-boli. The result was the emergence of new style of art, architecture and music which continue to be our rich heritage; it preserved the old Hindu form and transplanted on it the contours of Islamic designs. E.B. Havell, the eminent art critic has explained in his classical work on Indian Architecture that whether Muslim rulers were Arab, Pathan, Turk, Persian or Mongol, each of them borrowed in the construction of mosques, dargahs or palaces, from Hindu symbols and designs.
Another step for unity at the social level as the inter-communal marriages in different strata of society which took place freely not only at the court but also in the havelis and bazaars, thus, fostering a better understanding between members of the two communities. Some maulvis used to be upset by these unions but they were welcomed not only by the elite, who entered into them the most, but also by the common people, Jehangir was born of Hindu mother who was, therefore, the great grandmother of Aurangzeb. Mixing of Hindu and Muslim blood was, therefore, not such an uncommon phenomenon. Sir John Marshall has rightly pointed out that “seldom in the history of mankind has the spectacle been witnessed of two civilizations, so vast and so strongly developed, yet so radically dissimilar as the Muhammadan and the Hindu, meeting and mingling together. The very contrasts, which existed between them, the wide divergences in their culture and their religions, make the history of their impact peculiarly instructive….”
There was also inter-communal fraternization among Muslim subedars and Hindu senior officers; perhaps more because of greater interaction between them, in the vast imperial establishment. At the ground level, cultivator’s headmen and accountants in the villages were Hindus; and so also were finance and revenue officers because they were better acquainted with the intricacies of these departments. Even under Aurangzeb, 36 percent of the manasabdars were Hindus. The Muslims were engaged mostly in the military and in affairs of the court and the palace. The attitude of the Hindu rulers towards their Muslim subject was equally just and fair. Vijayanagar employed thousands of them in both civil and military establishments. The entire contingents of Rana Sanga (ruled from 1509-28) were Muslim. Shivaji’s admiral of the fleet was a Muslim; so were one-third of his sepoys and a large number of officers.
The credit for inculcating, the spirit of inter-communal brotherhood among the common people during Muslim rule goes to Ramananda, who traveled all over north India propagating the message of love and amity. He disowned the caste system and spread devotional Hinduism inspired by the teachings of Islam. Kabir, a Muslim weaver, became the harbinger of inter-faith unity. Likewise Dadu, a born Muslim, devoted his whole life to bringing Hindus and Muslims together. However as John M. Koller writes in his book, The Indian Way: “When Muslims on Indian soil were perceived as true spiritual seekers and genuinely devout holy persons, they were accepted as part of the religious family, to be honoured as saints. Later, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when opposition between Hindus and Muslims grew intense, primarily for political reasons, Hindus often conveniently forgot the Muslim ancestry of some of these saints and in some cases, almost certainly in that of Dadu, deliberately falsified the historical record to blot out Muslim origins.”
Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, also preached the gospel of universal brotherhood; his religion is a unique mixture of Islam and Hinduism, with its emphasis on the worship of one God. Then there was Namdeva, who blended in his songs the Islamic way of worship with Upanishadic monotheism. He used freely in his native tongue, words from the Arabic and the Persian and glorified God in the same manner as the Muslims did. Tukaram, one of the greatest devotional poets of medieval India, was also deeply influenced by Islam; his songs bear testimony to it.
But this was not a one-sided affair, as some communal-minded historians have tried to make out; Hinduism influenced Islam as much as Islam influenced Hinduism. They had to; no two peoples, living together, in towns and villages, socializing every day, sharing in each other’s joys and sorrows, could be immune from mutual influences. The harmonizing part that the Muslim Sufis played was most significant. Like the Hindu saints, they submerged themselves in prayer and their devotion to God, cutting across dogmas. The puritans disapproved of it; but the Sufis borrowed greatly from the philosophy of Vedanta. They were motivated more by the light within and the intuitive experience than mere adherence to format rites and traditional practices. There were a host of them, moving from one part of India to another and founding their hospices; millions of Muslims and Hindus flocked there.
The most notable of the Sufis were Moinuddin Chisti, who settled down in Ajmer; Nizamuddin Aulia who lived in Delhi; and Baba Fareed (d.1265), who toured the tracts of Punjab. The dargah of Qutbuddin Bakhtayar Kaki (d.1235), a disciple of Chistin, was as much sought after by Hindus as Muslims. Even today it attracts thousands of pilgrims of all faiths. The saint trained hundreds of disciples who propagated the message of unity and love. Music, which the orthodox Muslims frowned upon, was the spiritual food of the Sufis, some of whom even danced and went into a trance, a clear evidence of the Hindu influence on the proponents of Islam.
M.G. Ranade in his monumental work, The Rise of the Maratha Power has explained this phenomenon, thus: “…The worshippers of Dattatraya or the incarnation of the Hindu Trinity, often clothed their God in the garb of a Muhammadan Faqir. This same influence was at work with greater effect on the popular mind in Maharashtra where preachers, both Brahmans and non-Brahmans, were calling the people to identify Rama with Rahim, and ensure their freedom from the bonds of formal ritualism and caste distinctions, and unite in common love of man and faith in God”. This trend was also reflected elsewhere. For instance, in Sind, which first brought political Islam into India, Hindus became murshid or disciples of Muslim pirs and Muslims accepted Hindu Gurus. Even today the songs of Bedil and Bekas, Rohal and Qutb and Shah Abdul Latif are sung by Sindhis, irrespective of their religious affiliation. Prof. J. Farooqi has listed the seven areas where Sufis were influenced by their contacts with their Hindu disciples.
The camaraderie between the two peoples reached its climax under the great Mughals. Akbar gave it the greatest impetus; his Maktab Khana translated Hindu epics into Persian, which changed considerably the Muslim perception of Hinduism. Two of the navaratans of Akbar’s court, the brothers – Abul Fazl and Faizee – through their works bridged the gulf between the two faiths. Jahangir also encouraged the exchange of views among scholars of different religions; during the reign of Shah Jahan, his eldest and favourite son Dara Shikoh translated the Upanishads into Persian and through his classical work, Majmaal Bahrayn, brought out the common features between Muslim and Hindu mysticism.
Again, it was during the days of the Mughals, that the great saint Mirza Mazhar Jan-i-janam pronounced that Ram and Krishna should be regarded as the prophets of God. Then there was the participation of Muslims at all levels in Hindu festivals and festivities. The History and Culture of the Indian People, published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, records many examples of Hindus and Muslims participating together in their respective festivals during the Mughal period. It points out, “Decorations, illuminations, fire-works, splendid processions, abundant display of gold, silver, pearls, diamonds, and jewels, observed by Muslims in India in the celebrations of Hindu festivals, were the natural consequence of their contact with the Hindu culture”. All these rulers would get rakhis, beautifully made with rubies and pearls, tied on their wrist by courtiers of theirs wives or daughters.
P.N. Chopra has given graphic details of some of the Hindu festivals celebrated at the Mughat court. He writes, “On the occasion of the Dasehra festival, royal elephants and horses were washed, groomed, and caparisoned to be arrayed for inspection by the Emperor. Diwali or Deepavali was observed in much the same manner, as it is today; fireworks were discharged and sweets and other presents were exchanged. Gambling was considered auspicious on this day and people kept awake the whole night trying one another’s luck at dice. Except during the reign of Aurangzeb, all through the Mughal period great reverence was shown by the emperors and their nobility to Hindu forms of worship; Shivaratri was observed by both Hindus and Muslims with great solemnity. Likewise, Ramnavami and Janamashtami were celebrated with great enthusiasm.”
Apart from joining the Hindus in such celebrations, a systematic effort was made by the Mughals for their Hindu and Muslim subjects not only to celebrate these jointly but also to understand each other’s religious susceptibilities. Muslim and Hindu religious books were translated from Persian into Sanskrit and from Sanskrit into Persian. They were freely circulated among the educated classes of both communities. As Dr. Fathullah Mujtabai, the former head of the Department of Religions in the University of Teheran, has observed, “These writings are vivid reflections of how the two great religions, with different traditions and backgrounds, with equal potentialities to resist and to survive, but, at the same time, with the wealth of their spiritual and humanistic values, came together, and without losing their identities, joined hands to build up the Medieval India civilization, with all its richness and all its achievements.”
The British, however, were far too clever to allow such unity to continue for long. Some Hindu and Muslim leaders unwittingly played into their hands; discord replaced accord and riots between the followers of the two faiths were engineered by vested interests. They encouraged systematically, both among Hindus and Muslims, the development of separate communal identities, based mainly on hostility against the other community and in the process managed to weaken each other’s national identity. This damaged the edifice of unity, so assiduously built by Gandhi and the Ali Brothers in the early twenties, strengthened by C.R. Das, the Nehru and Sarojini Naidu in the thirties and assisted by Ansari, Azad and Ajmal Khan and fortified by the sacrifices of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
Thereafter, communal leaders on both sides thwarted efforts for any political understanding. Talks were held, discussions took place, negotiations were conducted and pacts were signed, as in the case of the Congress-League Pact of 1916 and Nehru Report in 1928 but nothing concrete ever emerged. The Round Table Conferences proved a fiasco. Hindus and Muslims drifted apart. The more some leaders talked of bringing people together, the more others in search of personal power separated them.
As a result, Jinnah, the apostle of units, reversed his secular stand and propagated his notorious “two-nations” theory which poisoned the whole atmosphere as never before; it did the greatest damage to Hindu-Muslim relations. No medieval ruler did more harm to the cause of unity than this self-proclaimed champion of Islam, who knew nothing of its tenets and practiced none. In order to establish a separate leadership for himself as against that of Gandhi, Jinnah used every device to further the divide between the two communities. Unfortunately Muslims, by and large, were carried away by the religious frenzy that he generated. He repeated ad nauseam: “Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literature. They neither intermarry, nor interdine; indeed they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on life and of life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Mussalmans derive their inspirations from different sources of history. They have different epics, their heroes are different, and they have different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other and likewise their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state.” A greater untruth was never spoken in the annals of India by any one; it was the worst travesty of history.
Ironically, as soon as Jinnah had accomplished his mission and carved out the state of Pakistan, he instantly gave up the divisive approach and abandoned his “two-nation” theory. Inaugurating the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, on the eve of its formation, on August 11, 1947 he told the members, who comprised both Hindus and Muslims at that time that all citizens, irrespective of their religious beliefs, were equal in every respect. “Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal”, he declared, “and you will find that in course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal fait of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.” After Jinnah’s death, the Muslims in Bengal felt uncomfortable with the Punjabis, Pathans and Sindhis and finally in les than 25 years – in – 1971 they broke from Pakistan and established their own separate State of Bangladesh, not on the basis of religion but on language,
It is true there are vital differences in certain spheres between Hindus and Muslims as there are among Bengalis and Tamilians, or even Maharashtrians and Gujratis, whose style of living, eating and celebration of festivals differ; but, there are many common ties which also bind them together. That is equally true of Hindus and Muslims; in fact Indian Islam is, in many respects, quite distinct from Arab Islam, or Iranian Islam, or Malaysian or Indonesian Islam and has been considerably coloured by the traditions the country of their ancestors. Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan has refuted Jinnah’s contention eloquently: “ Both my Hindu brethren and my Muslim co-religionists breathe the same air, drink the water of the sacred Ganga and the Jamuna, eat the products of the earth which God has given to this country, live and idea together. Both of us have shed off our former dress and habits, and while Muslims have adopted numerous customs belonging to the Hindus, the Hindus have been vastly influenced by Muslim manners and customs.” Dr. Muhammad Umar of Aligarh Muslim University has written and excellent treatise in Urdu, wherein he has elaborated on the gradual impact that Hindu institutions and conventions have produced, over the age, on the habits, customs and rituals of Indian Muslims, even on their outlook of life and in their style of living. It is titled Hindustani Tahzeeb ka Mussalmanao par Asar and deals exhaustively with every aspect of their relationship. He has collected valuable material, which conclusively demolishes the “two-nation” theory and brings out in sharp contrast the deep impact that Hinduism had on moulding the character of Islam in India.
Jinnah talked of Hindu heroes being different from Muslim heroes; so are the heroes of the Gujaratis different from those of the Maharashtrians and those of the Punjabis from the Tamilians and of the Bengalis from the Biharis. There are plenty of differences among different castes, sects and groups, religious or linguistic; but there are also many common bonds. The situation is similar between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi, Nehru and Azad stressed in recent times these bonds, while Jinnah in the evening of his life harped on their divisive aspects. Superficially there may be some differences between Hindus and Muslims but, by and large, especially in villages, they live and socialize in such harmony and camaraderie that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other.
Gandhi put it rather picturesquely, while writing in Harijan in its issue of April 6, 1940: “The vast majority of Muslims of India are converts to Islam or are descendants of converts. They did not become a separate nation as soon as they became converts. A Bengali Muslim speaks the same tongue that a Bengali Hindu does, eats the same food, has the same amusements as his Hindu neighbour. They dress alike. I have often found it difficult to distinguish by outward sign between a Bengali Hindu and a Bengali Muslim. The same phenomenon is observable, more or less, in the south among the poor who constitute the masses of India. When I first met the late Sir Ali Imam, I did not know that he was not a Hindu.
His speech, his dress, his manners, his food were the same as of the majority of the Hindus in whose midst I found him. His name alone betrayed him. So was it with Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah. For, his name could be that of any Hindu. When I first met him, I did not know that he was a Muslim. I came to know his religion when I had his full name given to me. His nationality was evident from his face and manner. The reader will be surprised to know that for days, if not months, I used to think of the late Vithalbhai Patel (d.1933) as a Muslim, as he used to sport a beard and a Turkish cap. The Hindu law of inheritance governs many Muslim groups. Sir Mohammad Iqbal used to speak with pride of his Brahminical descent. Iqbal and Kitchlew are names common to Hindus and Muslims. Hindus and Muslims of India are not two nations. Those whom God has made one, man will never be able to divide.”
Urdu novels, short stories and ghazals hardly have a communal bias; they bring out the joys and sorrows, successes and failures, feuds and frolic of both Hindus and Muslims. Urdu literature is replete with such contributions. The truth is that in all the endeavours that enrich human life there is more similarity between Hindus and Muslims than among any other religious groups in India, except perhaps the Sikhs. The differences between Jains, Buddhists and Hindus are much more marked. Hindu singers render ghazals beautifully; sometimes they even overshadow Muslims in singing ghazl qawwali. According to the noted Urdu critic, Ali Jawad Zaidi, the most popular poetic form, the mushaira, was borrowed from the Hindus and not the Iranians, as is erroneously believed. One of the most impressive Urdu poets who shone in mushaira in free India was Ragupathi Sahai Firaq Gorakhpuri, a Hindu, who was ranked as one of the greatest among Urdu poets.
It is also said that Urdu began to be written from the very beginning in the Persian script, thus underlining its Islamic roots; but Ahmad Ali, A Pakistani author, disputes this in his book, The Golden Tradition: “This view is based on the notion that whatever is written in the Devanagri script is not Urdu. Rediscovered texts in the Devanagri script have shown that the absorption of foreign words, whether Persian, Turki or Arabic, was progressive and considerable, and a continusous tradition of poetry in this language existed even before the Persian language came to be employed; and that Amir Khusro (1243-1325) is only one of the many poets who belong to it.” He suggests that only a few of his poems, through the oral tradition, have come to us but if “a search of contemporary manuscripts in the Devanagri script” is made, many more may come to light. This belief is reinforced by the fact that the poems of the sixteenth-century poet, Abdul Rahim Khan Khanna; who took the takhalus or poetic name of Rahim, are found in the Devanagri script.
Even before Khusro or Rahim, there were others from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, both Hindus and Muslims, such as Kabir Das (1440-1518), Meera Bai (1567-1614), Guru Nanak and Malik Mohammad Jaysee, who wrote in the Devanagri script but whose language was basically the same as early Urdu or Khari-boli. The script changed to Persian in the seventeenth century when Urdu became the court language of the Mughals.
Similarly, there has been much fusion of Hindu and Muslim designs and workmanship in architecture. For instance the Qutb Minar which is embellished with Quranic verses, has its ornamentation copied from Hindu jewellery. In the Quawantul-Islam mosque the motifs were both Indians and Iranians. The arches in the tomb of Balban (1266-27), now in ruins, also showed the same influence. Even Firoz Tughluq (1351-88), despite his religious bigotry, used Hindu columns in madrasas. In the Tantipura Mosque of Gaur, the columns are exact replicas of those in temples. The same fusion is noticed in the building known as the Elephant Stables.
This kind of harmonious blending had its full flowering under the Mughals. Akbar’s Fort at Agra has drawn greatly from the architectural design of the Elephant Gateway in Gwalior. It became a precursor, depicting motifs of birds and animals which were frowned upon by the mullahs. In the Panch Mahal, there are carvings showing Rama being worshipped by Hanuman. In many other Mughal monuments, though Islamic in conception and design, the Hindu influence is quite prominent.
Painting is disapproved of by the Muslim devout; it is supposed to encourage idol worship. However it continued to flourish in Iran, even after the advent of Islam and in India both the Turks and Mughals, patronised it. It received the greatest impetus under the Great Mughals and saw the fascinating blending of Iranian and Indian art, visible in many works of that period. Some of the outstanding painters were both Hindus and Muslims – Kalyan Das, Anup Chitre, Rai Anup and Manohar and Muhammad Nadir, Mir Hashim and Faqirullah Khan. Abul Fazl mentions seventeen pre-eminent painters, patronised by Akbar, of whom thirteen were non-Muslims.
The Mughal miniature reflects the distinctively Indian genius; it flowered during the reigns of Jahangir, Shah Jahan and even in the early eyars of Aurangzeb. During the Delhi Sultanate, Amir Khusrau admitted that the Muslim arts were transformed by Hindu influence; it played a phenomenal part in music and dance. The Sufis found the Hindu forms and tunes much more congenial and effective that the Iranian ones. Out of the interaction new melodies and tunes were born. Tarana is, for instance, akin to ullana and qawwali is the result of this fusion; it adapts Indian rhythms to Persian and Arabic tunes. One of Akbar’s navratan or “nine jewels”, the legendary singer Tansen (1555-1610) captivated Muslims as much as Hindus at the Mughal court. He borrowed heavily from the musical forms of Persia. Even the Vijayanagaram court gave full play to the mingling of Hindu music with that emanating from Iran and Arabia. These traditions have come down from generation to generation with the result that today some of the greatest exponents of Indian music and dance are Muslims.
These are facts which establish beyond doubt that there has been much more in common in every sphere between Hindus and Muslims than the differences that divide them. Jinnah stressed the differences to suit his political purpose; but the ties between the two communities are far more secure and, thus, verily demolish his theory that religion can be the basis of nationality; neither the Quran nor the Prophet subscribe to this. That is why even Arabs practicing the same religion and speaking the same language but living in different parts could not become one nation; nor have they been able to integrate with Iranians or Malaysians or Indonesians, or any one of them with the other. Undivided Pakistan was the latest experiment; but it has also failed miserably. There are many other factors, besides religion which make a nation. The history of the world is replete with examples which disprove Jinnah’s “two-nation’ theory, which he himself, on getting his Pakistan, as I have pointed out earlier, promptly gave up.
No one has refuted its veracity more eloquently than Maulana Azad; he explained in his presidential address to the Ramgarh Session of the Congress in 1940 the long process through which Hindus and Muslims became one nation: “Eleven hundred years of common history have enriched India with our common achievements. Our languages, our poetry, our literature, our culture, our art, our dress our manners and customs, innumerable happenings of our daily life, everything bears the stamp of our joint endeavour. There is indeed no aspect of our life which has escaped this stamp. Our languages were different, but we grew to use a common language; our manners and customs were dissimilar, but they acted and reacted on each other and thus produced a new synthesis. Our old dress may be seen only in ancient pictures of bygone days; no one wears it today. This joint wealth is the heritage of our common nationality and we do not want to leave it and go back to the times when this joint life had not begun.. These thousand years of our joint life has moulded us into a common nationality. This cannot be done artificially. Nature does her fashioning through her hidden processes in the course of centuries… No fantasy or artificial scheming to separate and divide can break this unity. We must accept the logic of fact and history and engage ourselves in the fashioning of our future destiny.”
The population of Indian Muslims, now numbering over 140 million, is more than that of Pakistan or the whole Arab world. Their anxiety to preserve their identity in the midst of the sea of Hindus who constitutes almost 80 per cent of India’s population as compared to about 12 per cent Muslims is understandable. The more India’s relations with Pakistan get soured, the more Indian Muslims are targeted. Many Hindus view Muslims as an outpost of Pakistan, owing no loyalty to India. They are regarded by them as potential Pakistanis ; despite the fact that in every war against Pakistan Muslims have solidly stood by India. The Names of Brigadier Usman and Havildar Abdul Hamid who were given the Parma Veer Chakra, the highest military awards, for valour and sacrifice in these wars, shine brightly in the military annals of India.
Why has this distrust persisted against them? From Balraj Madhok in the recent past to Pravin Togaria in the present and from Veer Savarkar (1883-1866) to Lala Rajpat Rai (1865-1928) during the freedom struggle, the attitude of Hindu Communalists towards Muslims has been hostile; they have always doubted the patriotism of Muslims. So long as Gandhi and Nehru lived, they fought valiantly against it but after them the situation worsened. Indira Gandhi tried to bridge the gulf but no avail. Now this gulf has been fully embedded into the Hindu psyche. Muslim-phobia has become the central point of Indian politics. Indian Muslims, on their part, have done little to help remove it; on the contrary due to the behaviour of some of their leaders, it has been perpetuated. That is the tragic part which threatens to besmirch the relationship between Hindus and Muslims in the next millennium.
Hindu communalists have become aggressive and have reinforced their demand for the Indianisation of Indian Muslims who are told to shed their separateness and merge into the so-called national mainstream; Y.B. Chavan, as the Union Home Minister gave a cogent reply in his speech in the Rajya Sabha on 24 November 1969: “When we say that Indian Muslims require to be Indianised, it means you presume that they are not Indians. And creating this type of feeling against a large minority of India is the greatest crime that can be committed in this country. There may be individuals here and there who are unpatriotic; I do not say there may not be. There may be unpatriotic people among the Hindus also. May be there are some Muslims also who are unpatriotic. But are we going to take these exceptional cases and brand a whole community as unpatriotic and anti-national.”
Such a charge, on the contrary, makes Muslims cling together. Can this behaviour on their part be considered anti-national, as the Hindu communalists proclaim? Indian Muslims not only vehemently deny it but resent such insinuation. The contradiction in the two stands stems from what sociologist T.K. Oommen has rightly pointed out in a thought-provoking article in The Times of India, as “the rupture between citizenship and nationality”. Ethnic diversity has enriched America: so have religious and cultural diversities made India what she is. As the Jewish-American philosopher, Horace Kallen has explained, because of ethnic intermingling in America, there has emerged “ a federation or common-wealth of national cultures, a democracy of nationalities, cooperating voluntarily and autonomously through common institutions… a multiplicity in unity, an orchestration of mankind.” It is the outcome of what he has called, “cultural pluralism”, which is also a part of our national heritage. As the aftermath of Partition, prejudices against Indian Muslims have further deepened. It has greatly harmed the younger Muslim generation who had nothing to do with Partition. The situation has become so pathetic can be sensed from the poem published in Rafiq Zakaria’s book The Widening Divide:
I am Muslim; I cannot help my tears;
I have gone through sixty long years
Suffering pangs of hunger, day after day
And unbearable humiliation all the way
I faced riots, bullets, sword and dagger,
They burnt my home, my mother and sister;
When I complained, they put me in a cell.
There are no jobs, life is one big hell.
Under the benign sky of my beloved land,
I am reduced to starve with outstretched
hand.
Weary and worn out, I search for solace,
I wander crestfallen from place to place,
I have no home, so no ration card
And thus no vote, no identity card;
With nothing to offer, I cannot marry
I have remained a bachelor, desolate and
solitary;
If only my father had the foresight
To remain a bachelor too, to save me
this plight.
In the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, when riot broke out and thousands of innocent Muslims lost their lives and homes, an Urdu poet expressed the pain and anguish of the community, thus:
Sar Kashi ki kisi Mahmud ne Sadiyon pehlay
Isliye khoob khabar li meray sar ki tumnay
Chand pathar kisi Babur ne geeraye thay kabhi
Eenth se eenth bajadi meray ghar ki tumnay.
*******
For the insurrection of one Mahmud
Some centuries ago,
You have wreaked vengeance on my head.
For a Babur who rained stories
In the days of yore,
You have razed to the ground
My hearth, my home!
I have tried to be as objective and rational in my analysis of Hindu-Muslim relations as possible but where emotions are whipped up, logic fails to convince. As time passes, prejudice gets more and more entrenched. In the words of Nehru, writing in his Glimpses of World History: “The chains which sometime tie up our bodies are bad enough; but the invisible chains consisting of ideas and prejudices which tie up our minds are far worse. They are of our own making and though often we are not conscious of them, they hold us in their terrible grip.”
There are both positive and negative aspects of the Hindu-Muslim relationship – sometimes the one has prevailed and sometimes the other. At present, the negative one has polluted the national atmosphere; Hindu Communalists in particular are alarmingly antagonistic and resentful of Muslims. This is true not only of the communalists, but it has also affected adversely the secularists among them. It is necessary, therefore, that old barriers are broken and new bridges between Hindus and Muslims are erected. Hindus need to be reassured that Muslims are as proud of India’s heritage, its moral values and spiritual traditions. Further, that they have always been an integral part of this ancient land, in whose development they have played no mean part.
Efforts have to be made to remove the stigma which the propagation of the “two-nations” theory in the past created. In the struggle for power, both Hindus and Muslims, have lost sight of the reality of Indian unity. Muslims, in particular, propagated a falsehood – that they cannot unite with Hindus. They must now convince Hindus that their love for their country is as deep as that for their religion; instead of resenting the hurtful taunt of disloyalty, they should try to dispel it. No one can, in any case, take away from Muslims what by right belongs to them. They are as much “sons of the soil” as Hindus; their whole being has been shaped by India. To treat them as outsiders is to cause them the deepest hurt; to discriminate against them is a crime against humanity.
Arising out of the misconception – that Muslims care only for their religion and not for their country – is the other myth that they gang up against non-Muslims. History has exploded it again and again and still Hindu communalists persist in spreading it. The fact is, there is neither a religious nor a historical basis for it. Khilafat died with the death of the fourth caliph, Ali. Thereafter, it was the rule of a family – to begin with the Umayyads, who poisoned one grandson of the Prophet, Hasan, and killed and multilated the body of the other, Hussain. After the Umayyids came the Abbasids, under whom dissensions and revolts by different groups of Muslims proliferated. They were followed by the Saljuqs under whom the situation worsened. In fact, as time passed, one Muslim dynasty after another was at each other’s throats. The Fatimids of Egypt – a Shiite family, preferred an alliance with the Christians rather than with the Sunni Muslims. Likewise, the Sunni Ottomans did everything in their power to destroy the Sitte Saffavids of Iran. Nor were the Arabs under the Turkish rule particularly happy. The same was the case with Afghan and Turkish Sultans of Delhi; the Mughals carved out their kingdom on their own and did not accept the suzerainty of the Caliphs of Baghdad. Hence, there is no basis for believing that Muslims, wherever they be, are bound politically and externally, by the ties of Islam; the division of the world into Darul Islam and Darul Harab, was an innovation. Which has no Quranic sanctity; it was neither accepted by the people nor implemented by Muslim rulers, whose actions were motivated by political or personal rather than religious considerations.
Even today, even high-level conferences by O.I.C. Muslims have never succeeded in forming a common front; on the contrary many of them have fought and shed the blood of millions of their co-religionists. For instance, Malaysia fought Indonesia, Iraq, Iran; Pakistan, Bangladesh; South Yemen, North Yemen; Libya, Chad; Algeria, Libya; Pakistan, Morocco, to name a few. As compared to these wars, how many Muslim countries have fought against non-Muslim countries? Hardly any. Even when a horrible genocide has been perpetrated against Muslims in Bosnia, apart from lip sympathy, no Muslim ruler or government did anything to alleviate their suffering or aid them militarily. They could not defy America because their interests, in many cases, are linked with that country. The bitterest lesson in this regard has been learnt by Muslim immigrant of Indian origin to Pakistan and Bangladesh; the Biharis, who went from Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, having left their ancestral homes and all their belongings in the hope of settling in the Islamic state of their dream have been cruelly treated by the Bengalis; similar has been the plight of Muslims immigrants, the Muhajirs, in Pakistan. They were in the forefront of the movement for partition but, today, they are outcasts in the “Land of the Pure” Unbelievable cruelties are perpetrated against them by the Sindhis, Punjabis and Afghans who are more concerned about their territorial than religious affiliation. Indian Muslims are today placed in a peculiar situation; they are distrusted by Hindus, not wanted by Pakistan or Bangladesh and uncared for by the rest of the Muslim world who seem more worried about the fate of the 7 million Kashmiri Muslims than the rest of the over 140 Indian Muslims. O.I.C. should realize that if Kashmir goes to Pakistan, there will be virtual genocide of Indian Muslims. They must stop toeing the Pakistani line. Indian Muslims must warn them and say: “Hands off Kashmir.” They (OIC) must stop disturbing the secular fabric of India and in the process jeopardizing the liberties and lives of 140 million Muslims.
This has been brought out recently in an article in the Dawn, the Pakistani newspaper, founded by Jinnah: “The making of Pakistan was never meant to be at cost and risk of the Indian Muslim minority. But this is precisely what has happened. Our focus is on the liberation of Kashmiri Muslims only. We rest content to let the Indian Muslims wallow in the Indian diaspora,. For Pakistanis the Indian Muslim is a forgotten entity. They exist in a sort of no-man’s land; deemed expendable by Pakistan and not entirely trustworthy by India. They are hostage to India-Pakistan conflicts. From our point of view, Kashmir completes the map of Pakistan (now that Bangladesh has been ejected from our political consciousness) but, from the Indian Muslim point of view, it may well be the kiss of death. Pakistanis should not only take into account the physical and emotional stresses and strains of the Indian Muslims but also remember that they number about as many as the Muslims in Pakistan (135 millions). The upshot of this discussion is that (a) fundamentalist Pakistan was not the vision of its founder but the vision of those who slandered Jinnah and the Pakistan idea; and (b) that the more confrontational our relations with India the greater are the stresses on our cousins in India and vice-versa.”
On their part, Indian Muslims must learn to stand on their feet first. Muscle without power is not madness nor do crutches restore health. The first task before Muslims, to ensure their future in the next millennium, is to concentrate on education at all levels, from the primary to the university level; without it they cannot improve their lot. It is, indeed, amazing that while Muslims have agitated on a massive scale for the restoration of the minority character of Aligarh Muslim University, or the reversal of the Supreme Court judgment in the Shah Bano case, there has been no organised move on their part for educational improvement of their masses which alone can bring about their economic amelioration. Surveys have shown that their condition is worsening at every level. Every political party announces some scheme or the other for their upliftment; but nothing comes out of it. Latest in the series is Sachhar commission’s report.
Opposition to political reservation, especially in view of the politics of vote bank, is understandable; though here also the general electorate dealt a stunning blow to Muslim representation at every level – from the panchayat, the local bodies to assemblies and the two houses of Parliament. Then why should Muslims be denied educational and economic reservation? Some states have proposed it, though on a limited scale; others including the Centre, must now think about it seriously. This is necessary if Muslims are to be taken out of the rut. Every deprived section is now favoured with reservation; then why this antipathy to Muslims alone who, indisputably, are now the most deprived?
Muslims have also to undo a lot of the past in order to win the goodwill of Hindus. They must give up the path of confrontation and take to the path of conciliation. This was what Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan advised them to do vis-à-vis the ruling British who hated Muslims much more than the Hindus who hate them today. He concentrated on education and social reforms. He asked the Muslims to abjure agitation. The situation today is more or less the same: Muslims face Hindus, instead of the British. The politics of Muslim leaders has so far been a millstone around their necks; they have successfully kept Muslims apart from Hindus. There has been some patchwork here and there, but no radical attempt at an enduring union. That requires a proper balance between power and identity. And it is that which has not been attempted though it is the root of the matter. Only temporary relief are asked for and in some cases given, however grudgingly. The result is that conflicts continue to simmer; they are sometimes suppressed, but never resolved. To talk of persecution by the majority is as wrong as appeasement of minorities. As Gandhi pointed out, “Appeasement can only be of enemies.”
In the light of what Hindus and Muslims have experienced – through good times and bad, over the centuries, particularly in the last sixty years since independence – they must make a conscious effort to forget and forgive and to take to each other more kindly if they have to build a prosperous and strong India in the next millennium. Hindus must realize that while hatred may be a very potent weapon but as the history of the world shows, it results in nothing but destruction. Even the more successful among nations has not been able to escape its consequences. In our times Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin brought the greatest disasters to their people by practicing it. Those in India who believe that a similar approach will work here are being blind to the lessons of history; they will only succeed in destroying the fine democratic fabric of our nation. India is blessed with multiple identities; this, in fact, has always been the source of her strength.
Today, more than at any other time, Hindus and Muslims have to be brought together. Practical means have to be found to eschew prejudices, discard religious misconceptions and historical distortions, remove misunderstandings at every level through sustained efforts and to lay a new basis for a more solid and sustainable relationship between the two communities, which will stand the stresses and strains of changing circumstances and meet the demands of the next century.
Finally, a few words to my co-religionists: It is time Indian Muslims give up their suicidal tendency getting excited over temporary irritants which invariably invite a Hindu backlash. Instead of agitating over minor, irrelevant issues, they must concentrate on major issues, which bedevil their future. Most of their so-called leaders are rootless; they are more interested in whipping up emotions than working for the educational and economic upliftment of the faithful. They thrive on creating inter-communal crises. They are adept at making speeches and issuing statements to the press, which is only too willing to highlight them, forgetting that these leaders are mere paper tigers. Unfortunately, they are taken by Hindus as the representatives of Indian Muslims despite the fact that they have no electoral base.
Even after sixty long years, they have managed to hold the centre stage. The Congress nurtured them for decades; the other parties are doing the same now. There seems to be almost a sinister design to keep Indian Muslims backward. No one seems interested in their progress. They hardly matter politically. Socially, they are unable to assert; economically they are nowhere. There are three effective means that can help Indian Muslims to overcome their terrible plight. One, the spread of education, both, among men and women; more technical and professional than of humanities. Two, the proper use of popular strength to ventilate their genuine grievances with the right, progressive leadership. And lastly, a massive effort to improve the lot of the poor and the down-trodden among them by a network of sincere and dedicated volunteers.
Hindus must be made to realize that they must cooperate in these endeavours, if Indian Muslims are not to become a drag on the nation. Indian Muslims must take help from whatever quarters they can get. For far too long have they been used electorally without any gain to themselves. Votes per se have not helped them; that does not mean that they should not exercise their franchise. They must but, at the same time, they must realize they have to develop the necessary wherewithal to move away from their backwardness.
They have to enlist the cooperation of their neighbours and not hesitate to take help from whatever quarters – irrespective of their political affiliations – that they can get. They cannot afford to mortgage their future by indulging in ideological gymnastics. They have to first make themselves worthy of acquiring their right place in the Indian polity. In their present predicament, Muslims have to be realistic; they have to free themselves from the hangover of the past.
Indian Muslims must orientate their approach to the solution of their problems. They have to work out a new agenda to meet forthcoming challenges. They must shed both their worn-out notions and their current prejudices and chalks out a new path to march ahead. To uplift their community educationally and economically: that must be their top priority. That alone can make them survive in this country with dignity and honour. Iqbal has said:
Ayeen-i-naw so darna turzay kohan pay arna
Manzil yahee kathin hay quomon ki zindagi
main.
To be afraid of the new and to stick to the
old, That is the most difficult hurdle a people
have to overcome.
They must give up finding faults with others; instead, they need to do some introspection. Let them not put too much faith in the so-called well-wishers who have let them down so badly in the past. Let them exert themselves to shape their future.
As and Urdu poet has put it:
Safina choor, Sahil door, bebus Nakhuda lekin,
Sahare so gaye to Besaharo turm na so jaao
The boat is in a shambles, the shore, far away
the captain, powerless.
The support is no more, but Oh! The helpless:
‘Stay awake and redeem yourselves.’
BY
Col MZU Siddiquie, SM
