Over the last forty years, in the context
of a predominantly Hindu sub-continent, the Indian Muslims, second in number
only to Indonesian Muslims (over 125 million), have nevertheless failed to
benefit from their being the largest minority group. Although, at the time of
partition, they failed to make necessary mental adjustments to the new Indian
situation. They should have tried to gain a position for themselves in the
country by becoming a creative minority, but, sad to say, they failed to prove
their worth. They may be the largest minority community, but they have become
the most deprived of all groups in the country.
In view of their creed, tradition, history
and numbers, the Muslims were certainly in a position to make a major
contribution to the life of new India; the saying ‘in giving we receive’ could
well have come true for them. But, in order to do so, they needed a period of
tranquility; and this could have been possible only if they had unilaterally
withdrawn all their grudges and complaints against the majority and risen above
the reactionary psychology of the times.
But, unfortunately, the Muslim leadership failed to give the necessary
guidance. As a result, the Muslims were reduced to being a group ‘with demand;’
as such they could not become a giver group.
Moral
Stature
The religion of the Muslims gives them
enough moral stature to play a real and effective part in tackling the grave
problems that India is facing these
days. But, to be able to play this role, a ‘superior solution’ (a phrase of
Toynbee’s) was required. It is thanks to intellectual bankruptcy on the part of
the Muslim leadership that no such solution has been found.
A thorough and pertinent analysis of the
problem of the Indian Muslims has been made by an American orientalist, Dr
Theodore Paul Wright, Jr., who has been writing exhaustively on the subject for
the last 25 years in the most prestigious journals of the world. Dr Wright’s advice to the Indian Muslims is
‘to be an inconspicuous as possible so as not to draw Hindu backlash.’ He
concedes, though, that ‘this is a very hard advice to follow for a proud people
living in the midst of their monuments of glory.’
He divides the Indian Muslims into two
broad categories – the ‘coastal’ Muslims and the ‘inland’ Muslims. The latter
he calls ‘monument-conscious, living in the midst of their Taj Mahals and Red
Fort and Char Minars’ – those who have not forgotten that they once constituted
the ruling elite minority. It is significant, he feels, that the ‘Hindus pay
little or no attention to coastal Muslims trading communities,’ whereas ‘the
price they (the inland Muslims) pay is very heavy in terms of the riots that
occur.’
If the Muslims fail to relate to their
present situation, it is in large measure due to their emotional development
having atrophied in memories of their glorious past: they had, after all, been
rulers of South Asia for almost a millennium.
This, indeed, is the principal underlying factor in the lack of realism
which marks a great deal of their own planning for the future. Adverse
circumstances having led them to the point where the only feasible course is to
take ‘a back seat,’ they are still unwilling to face up to the reality of the
situation. Worse, they are misled by their leaders, who keep harking back to
the heyday of the Mughal reign and who insist on dwelling upon slights
(imagined or otherwise) to the Islamic psyche. In the present context, the
paths along which the Muslims are directed by popular leaders can only lead to
destruction.
The realization has not yet come to them
that from the position of the ‘back seat’ they are free to devote their time
and energy to exploiting their own considerable potential. By putting aside
notions of privilege and precedence, they can better educate and develop
themselves in consonance with the modern and fast changing setting in which
they now find themselves. It is simply a question of their getting their
priorities straight.
A prominent businessman, when asked about
his secret of success, said ‘starve the problems, feed the opportunities.’ And
my advice to the Muslims would be the same. History, after all, abounds in
examples of peoples who have successfully risen from the ashes of their past
deeds. A case in point is modern Japan. Its denizens, by their own account
‘children of the sun,’ genuinely believed themselves superior to all other
races, and, as such, within their rights in attempting to dominate other
nations. Their slogan was: ‘East Asia for Japan.’ This way of thinking on the
part of the Japanese was responsible for their being belligerent and aggressive
as a nation from 1937 to 1945, during which period they captured Manila,
Singapore and Rangoon. But they finally met with the most crushing defeat when
their rival, America, dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus
militarily crippling Japan.
They then had no alternative but to accept
a ‘humiliating surrender.’ They now had to come to terms with a reality which
was given expression to in a message broadcast by Emperor Hirohito on August
14, 1945: “We have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the
generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is
insufferable.’ On September 2, Japan signed a document which ratified the
supremacy of America over Japan.
Reverse Course
Of course, there had been attempts by
military extremists to prevent the emperor from making this broadcast. When
these failed, ‘there were a number of suicides among the military officers and nationalists,
who felt themselves dishonored,’ (Encyclopedia Britannica, 10/86). But, by and
large, the people accepted the position – the Japanese called it the ‘reverse
course’ – of a vanished nation. They
took the view rather than they now had an opportunity to enter upon a period of
national reconstruction.
By temporarily accepting the political and
economic superiority of America, Japan was able to give its undivided attention
to the fields of science and technology, thereby effecting its own national
rehabilitation. In a matter of 30 years, Japan was able to raise itself from a
position of economic inferiority to one of acknowledged superiority throughout
the world. Their success in the field electronics alone has been phenomenal.
Even the Americans have started showing
a marked preference for Japanese’s goods because of their superior
quality and competitive prices. Inevitably, this state of affairs has proved
extremely disquieting for American economic analysts. Pete Wilson, an expert on
American affairs, comments: ‘The Japanese semi-conductor Godzilla is now
destroying everything but Tokyo,’
After the Second World War, Japan had been
very much in debt to America. But it was not long before the situation was
entirely reversed. In 1986, $26 billion worth of American goods were exported
to Japan, as opposed to Japan’s exports to America, which exceeded $85 billion.
Today, America has, in effect, become the world’s biggest creditor. A whole
spate of books have come out on this issue, one of the most interesting, Japan
Number One, having become a best-seller in America.
Strategic Retreat
In
this world, it is only those who stop railing against defeat and accept it with
a view to doing something positive about the situation who can ultimately
succeed. We should never lose sight of the fact that a strategic retreat makes
it possible to return to the fray. Such
tactics were very well understood by the Muslims 1,400 years ago when they drew
up the peace treaty of Hudaybiyyah which, although apparently over-conciliatory
towards the opponent, ultimately permitted the Islamic mission to go forward
unhindered.
We
must concede that ours is a highly competitive world, one in which success, and
sometimes our very survival, is a question of outdistancing others. But, looked
at positively, this spirit of competition is the ladder to human progress: few
advances have been made in history without this spirit having been predominant.
The atomic age would have been ushered in much later had it not been for America’s
urge to attain world leadership. The electronic age might not have seen such
exponential development without the Japanese urge to climb to the top rung of
the economic ladder. Conversely, if those who had been left behind had resorted
only to complaints and protests, instead of taking constructive action, they
would just have been frittering away valuable time and energy, and would
ultimately have come face to face with annihilation.
The
first step towards taking positive action is to admit defeat and face the
realities of the situation. Once that psychological hurdle has been cleared,
there is nothing to stop an individual, community or nation from working
towards regaining, or even bettering, its lost position. What must be avoided
at all costs is sinking irrevocably into a morass of paranoid stagnation. While
there is nothing to be gained from pessimism, there is everything to be gained
from a positive approach.
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