On Loss
Amartya Sen's recent book, The Argumentative Indian had an assertion that startled me. India was Buddhist majority country through hundreds of years of its history. And yet, I never met a single Buddhist growing up in India. I have met far greater number of Americans, who are practicing Buddhists, than I have met Indians.
People seem to have a lot to say about change, and express their opinions strongly. Yet, we hardly notice it when we are in the middle of its happening. One such change hit me in my face when I read an old column written by MJ Akbar. Before partition, India was well on its way to becoming a truly composite culture where a Hindu and a Muslim were only partly Hindu and partly Muslim with both being completely Indian. The partition of India has meant that Pakistanis of today relate to Hinduism in about the same way as Indians relate to Buddhism, as something from the past that is now dead. Pakistan is 97% Muslim. India in the mean time is on a slower, but no less surer path towards losing its Islamic cultural influences.
Now, we simply fear each other. Hindus fear Muslims and think they are fanatical. Muslims fear Hindus and think they are cunning. Neither has any wish left to experience the other's culture. Fear comes in the way again. They fear such experience is just a precursor to conversion.
Jinnah may have been genuinely concerned that Muslims may get a raw deal in a nation where the numbers favored Hindus. But he was also spectacularly wrong. 150 million Muslims in India exert enough influence to moderate even hawkish voices like those of Advani. Imagine what the Indian politician would NOT have done to suck up to 450 million Muslims of a united India. As many liberal Muslim leaders, both in India and in Pakistan have pointed out, Partition is the worst thing that has happened to Muslims in South Asia.
In his speech to the constituent assembly of Pakistan, Jinnah laid out his vision for the new country. This is a vision that could well have been applicable to a united India.
One year of madness and mistrust led to bloodshed and violence whose scars permanently altered a thousand years of assimilation and cohabitation between the two major religious communities of our country. Or did it? Are we witnessing a permanent divorce and rejection of Akbar, Dara Shikoh and Kabir? Or are we seeing a temporary setback in an inevitable process? Maybe the old India lives. As Saeed Naqvi wrote in one of his columns, the media simply reports its preconceived notions of what a Hindu and Muslim must be.
Will there be Indians born today who shall be broadminded and gutsy enough to think as the Maulana does? Will India's progress towards a genuinely multi cultural society comfortable in its skin continue? I do not know. Time will tell, but I am sure I will not be around to find out.
Saeed Naqvi Column:
Click here
MJ Akbar Column:
Click here
Things change. The only constant is change. Change is a good thing. I hate change.
People seem to have a lot to say about change, and express their opinions strongly. Yet, we hardly notice it when we are in the middle of its happening. One such change hit me in my face when I read an old column written by MJ Akbar. Before partition, India was well on its way to becoming a truly composite culture where a Hindu and a Muslim were only partly Hindu and partly Muslim with both being completely Indian. The partition of India has meant that Pakistanis of today relate to Hinduism in about the same way as Indians relate to Buddhism, as something from the past that is now dead. Pakistan is 97% Muslim. India in the mean time is on a slower, but no less surer path towards losing its Islamic cultural influences.
The emperor prays to Allah, through the sufi divine Salim Chishti of Agra, for a son, and accepts prasad from his Hindu wife, Jodha Bai, after she has worshipped Lord Krishna on Janmaashtami. I could hear the credulity of one youngish voice break down in the hall. The scene was set just before the epic battle between father and son (the battle itself is a masterpiece of fusion between K. Asif’s direction and R.D. Mathur’s camera). A maulvi ties a tabeez on the right arm of the emperor with the famous victory verse of the Holy Quran Nasrumminallah-e-fateh-un-qareeb. Then a Hindu priest blesses the emperor as well with a saffron mark on the forehead. "Arrey," asked a querulous voice, "yeh Hindu hai ke Mussalman hai? (I say, is this chap a Hindu or a Muslim?)" The times are more liberal now, but the understanding is much less.
Now, we simply fear each other. Hindus fear Muslims and think they are fanatical. Muslims fear Hindus and think they are cunning. Neither has any wish left to experience the other's culture. Fear comes in the way again. They fear such experience is just a precursor to conversion.
Jinnah may have been genuinely concerned that Muslims may get a raw deal in a nation where the numbers favored Hindus. But he was also spectacularly wrong. 150 million Muslims in India exert enough influence to moderate even hawkish voices like those of Advani. Imagine what the Indian politician would NOT have done to suck up to 450 million Muslims of a united India. As many liberal Muslim leaders, both in India and in Pakistan have pointed out, Partition is the worst thing that has happened to Muslims in South Asia.
In his speech to the constituent assembly of Pakistan, Jinnah laid out his vision for the new country. This is a vision that could well have been applicable to a united India.
Now, I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.
One year of madness and mistrust led to bloodshed and violence whose scars permanently altered a thousand years of assimilation and cohabitation between the two major religious communities of our country. Or did it? Are we witnessing a permanent divorce and rejection of Akbar, Dara Shikoh and Kabir? Or are we seeing a temporary setback in an inevitable process? Maybe the old India lives. As Saeed Naqvi wrote in one of his columns, the media simply reports its preconceived notions of what a Hindu and Muslim must be.
Some of it is a function of ignorance. Not many in the media know about, say, Maulana Hasrat Mohani. He was a leading member of the Jamiat-ul-Ulemai Hind. As member of the Constituent Assembly, he refused to occupy official accommodation. He slept on a mattress at Masjid Abdul Nabi on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg. The Maulana never missed the annual Haj but considered his Haj incomplete until he had visited Barsana for a darshan of Radha. As a romantic poet he ranks among the best, but he is with Nazir Akbarabadi and Seemab Akbarakabadi in his colourful depiction of Lord Krishna’s childhood.
Will there be Indians born today who shall be broadminded and gutsy enough to think as the Maulana does? Will India's progress towards a genuinely multi cultural society comfortable in its skin continue? I do not know. Time will tell, but I am sure I will not be around to find out.
Saeed Naqvi Column:
Click here
MJ Akbar Column:
Click here
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