Residue of Islamism in India
by Latif
Friday, Dec. 27, 2002 at 2:47 PM
Latif Explores the Role of Islamic Activity in India
The
Residue of Islamism in India
The most malevolent of these
residues is Islamism, the residue of the Muslim invasion of India spread over
several centuries. Its basic tenets are ultimately derived from the teachings of
Islam which has so far succeeded in sealing itself off from every shade of
empiricism, rationalism, universalism, humanism and liberalism, the hallmarks of
Hindu as well as modern Western culture. But in the context of India where Islam
failed in its mission of lasting conquest and total conversion, these tenets
have acquired a singularly sinister and subversive character.
Let
it be clear that the reference here is not at all to our Muslim brethren who are
our own flesh and blood, except for that microscopic minority which takes pride
in the purity of its Arab, Persian or Turkish descent.1
Instead of being the proponents of Islamism, the Muslims of India are its
victims whom it is trying to use as vehicles of its poisonous virulence. The
vast majority of Indian Muslims were converted to Islam by force or allurements.
But the conversion did not help them socially or culturally as their status
today in India�s Muslim society should amply prove. The Muslims of India,
therefore, have to be freed from rather than accused of Islamism.
What we mean by Islamism is a
self-righteous psychology and a closed cultural attitude which make it
impossible for its converts to coexist peacefully and with dignity with other
people. There are many Hindus who share several tenets of Islamism. On the other
hand, there are many Muslims who are frightened by Islamism and who would gladly
join the mainstream of Indian nationalism if they are freed from the whiphand
which a minority of theologians, politicians and hooligans has come to wield in
their community.
Those who want to know Islamism
first-hand and in full measure are referred to Shaikh Sir Mohammed Iqbal�s two
long poems which he wrote quite early in his career, and which earned for him
the title of Allama among the adherents of this cult. These are the Shikw� and
the Jaw�b-i-Shikwah which Mr. Khushwant Singh has recently published in
an English translation.
The Shikw� ends by
summing up that �naghm� hind� hai tau ky�, lai tau hijazi hai mir�,
that is, �no matter if my idiom is Indian, my spirit is that of Hijaz�.
Hijaz is that part of Arabia in which Mecca and Medina are situated.
The Jaw�b-i-Shikwah
ends on a still more strident note. Allah announces to the All�m� His supreme
message for mankind in the following words: �k� waf� t�ne muhammad se
tau ham tere hain�, that is, �if you are faithful to Muhammad, I shall
be faithful to you.�
Now, there are many Muslims in
India who have never heard the name of Iqbal or listened to his muse. And there
are many Hindus whose admiration for Iqbal is immeasurable. No, Islamism does
not refer to any particular section of Indian society. It refers to that
intellectual-or unintellectual-attitude which awards the monopoly of truth and
virtue to a particular prophet, and consigns all knowledge to the pages of a
particular book.
Taking our cue from All�m�
Iqbal and his lesser cohorts like Alt�f Hussain H�l�, we can safely summarise
the credo of Islamism in the following five fundamentals:
1. That Indian society before
the advent of Islam was living in utter spiritual, moral and cultural darkness
(j�hil�ya) like pre-Islamic Arabia;
2. That Islam brought to
India the only true religion, the only authentic moral values,
the only humane culture, and the only progressive social order;
3. That this civilizing
mission of Islam in India could not be completed, as in many other lands of
Asia and Africa, due to the intervention of the wily British who cheated Islam
of its empire in India, mostly by means of fraud;
4. That while the creation of
Pakistan has been a triumph and consolidation of the power of Islam, west of
the Ravi and east of the Hooghly, the conquest of India by Islam remains an
unfinished task;
5. That Islam has a right to
use all means, including force, to convert this D�rul-harb of an India
into a D�rul-Islam, so that a Hak�mat-i-Il�hiyah could
liquidate all traces of j�hil�ya and impose the law and culture of
Islam.
There are many Hindus like the
late Pandit Sunderlal who fully accept the first two fundamentals of Islamism.
It is a different matter that their logic fails them at this stage and they do
not proceed to the next three fundamentals which follow irrevocably. And there
have been many Muslims like the late Rafi Ahmed Kidwai and Justice M.C. Chagla
who rejects these fundamentals as repugnant.
Having thus outlined its
version of past Indian history, and the apocalypse towards which future Indian
history should be forced to travel, Islamism has evolved a strategy in which the
Muslims of India are envisaged as a base and an arsenal. Some salient features
of this strategy can be outlined as follows:
1. The Muslims of India,
particularly the Muslim intelligentsia, should be sealed off from every shade
of rationalism, universalism, humanism and liberalism, and an army of mullahs
and maulvis trained in the tenets of Islam should be let loose to brainwash
and keep them along the right track;
2. Every Muslim who does not
accept Islamism or dares criticize it or stands for the mainstream of Indian
nationalism, away from and above religious differences, should be denounced as
a renegade and a legitimate victim for murderous Muslim mobs;
3. The Muslims should be
encouraged to air as many grievances as can be invented, and try to pass off
as a down-trodden minority, oppressed, exploited and treated as second class
citizens by the �brute� Hindu majority;
4. These contrived grievances
of the Muslims should be used to convert the Muslim community into a compact
vote-bank which can function as a balancing factor in as many electoral
constituencies as possible, and which can blackmail all non-Islamist political
parties to accommodate Muslim candidates or include the maximum measure of
concessions to the Muslim community in their election manifestos;
5. The Muslims should be made
to agitate for India�s support to all international Islamic causes, right or
wrong, legitimate or illegitimate, so that their attention is kept constantly
diverted from demands of their own economic, social and cultural condition;
6. The Muslims should be
progressively persuaded and prepared to stage street riots on the slightest
pretext, be it a stray pig, or music before a mosque, or Urdu, or the minority
character of the Aligarh Muslim University, or a purely personal fracas
between toughs belonging to two communities, or the bombing of al-Aqsa mosque
in Jerusalem by an Austrian adventurer, or the hanging of Z.A. Bhutto by
President Zia of Pakistan, or the capture of the Ka�ba by some disgruntled
faction in Saudi Arabian politics, or some other similar event in the Islamic
world at large;
7. The frequent riots should
be used to frighten the Muslims who should then be coaxed to create,
consolidate and extend exclusive Muslim enclaves which can be stocked with
arms and ammunition, imported or otherwise.
The seven-fold strategy is
aimed at the Muslims in India who are to be brainwashed, blackmailed, frightened
and forced into the fold of Islamism. Another side of the same strategy has been
worked out to neutralise, paralyse and blacken or pamper different sections of
Hindu society so that the road is cleared for the forward march of Islamism.
Some salient features of this secondary strategy can be outlined as follows:
1. The concept of Secularism
which is enshrined in the Constitution of India and which has become the most
sacred slogan for all our political parties should be distorted,
misinterpreted and misused to the maximum to block out the least little
expression of Hindu culture in the state apparatus and public life of India;
2. The terms �communal�
and �communalism� which have become terms of abuse in India�s political
parlance, should be carefully cultivated and more and more mystified to malign
all those organisations, institutions and parties which do not serve Islamism,
directly and/or indirectly;
3. The accusation of being
fascists and anti-secularists should be hurled at all those individuals and
organisations who question the exclusive claims of Islam and its culture, who
know and tell the truth about Islamic scripture and history, and who see
through the Muslim game of grievances;
4. All praise and support
should be extended to those Hindus who go out of their way to champion Islamic
causes, national and international, and who see in Islam and its culture those
higher values which Islamism claims for them;
5. All available platforms
should be used to defeat and frustrate the emergence of a genuine and positive
Indian nationalism by always harping on India�s multi-racial,
multi-religious, multi-language, multi-national, and multi-cultural character.
Islamism did make some headway
among the Muslims in Independent India mostly because the dominant section of
Hindu intelligentsia partronised it for various reasons. The Congress
politicians patronised it because they found out very soon that they were in a
minority among the Hindus, and that they could survive in power only by
combining a solid Muslim vote with whatever Hindu vote they could get. The
Socialists went out of their way to patronise it partly because they harbour an
anti-Hindu animus and partly in the hope of securing Muslim vote-a hope which
has not as yet come anywhere near fulfilment. The Gandhians partronised it
because they no more remembered that their great Master, Mahatma Gandhi, was a
Hindu with a profound faith in San�tana Dharma, and because they
misunderstood his doctrine of non-violence towards all people, including the
Muslims of India, as an endorsement of Islam. The Communists patronised it
because they saw in it a powerful ally in their campaign against Hindu society
which they viewed as their main enemy. The self-alienated Hindu intellectuals
patronised it out of sheer animus towards Hindu society and culture which they
were out to damn on any pretext. Extending patronage to Islamism thus became a
pastime for all those who wanted to pass off as large-hearted liberals,
progressives and secularists.
But in the absence of local
resources and international patronage, the progress of Islamism in India was
rather slow. Pakistan, which was its only patron abroad, could not provide much
help beyond some hysteria in its mass media and propaganda in international
political forums. The several wars which India was forced to fight with Pakistan
to the disadvantage of the latter, also inhibited Islamism in India from
acquiring the requisite degree of self-confidence.
The use of oil as a political
weapon by Islamic countries and the influx of petro-dollars in plenty from
several Arab countries, particularly Libya and Saudi Arabia, since the early
�seventies, has given to Islamism in India a new glow of self-confidence in
one sudden sweep. This influx of Arab money is a natural and inevitable
phenomenon because, in the last analysis, Islamism is only another name for Arab
imperialism which had, at one stage of its history, pillaged and populated with
its own progeny many foreign lands and which even today keeps many non-Arab
nations spiritually enslaved.
Islamism in India is now busy
employing to the maximum advantage the Arab money which is pouring in through
many channels and in increasing quantities. Some of these uses are very obvious
to the eye. A few salient features of the new scenario can be listed as follows:
1. The rapid rise of a
powerful press, mostly in Indian languages, and many publishing houses to
propagate Islamism;
2. The generous funding of
old and the founding of many new maktabs, madrasas and institutes for
teaching Islam and training missionaries who are then employed at high
salaries for purifying the faith of die Muslim flock and seeking new pastures
for converts to Islam;
3. Buying of land and real
estate all around in urban and rural areas by individual Muslims and Islamic
institutions and organisations at whatever prices available;
4. Manufacturing and storing
of arms in mosques, Muslim homes and localities and training of Muslim toughs;
5. Holding of frequent
conferences, national and international, and taking out demonstrations in
support of every Islamic cause;
6. Financing Muslim politics
and inducing Muslim politicians to infiltrate and ingratiate themselves in
every political party, and function from every public platform;
7. Bribing secularist Hindu
intellectuals, scribes public workers and politicians, and buying them up for
supporting Islamism, denigrating Hindu culture, and character-assassinating
those who oppose Islamism;
8. Using the lure of money
for winning converts to Islam from the weaker sections of Hindu society,
particularly the Harijans.
The strategy is nothing new.
The self-same strategy had been used by the Muslim League for the carving out of
Pakistan. Only the aid and abetment which the British provided at one time have
been replaced by the aid and abetment from Arab countries. And in the matter of
a mere decade, Islamism in India has assumed the same menacing proportions as it
had on the eve of Partition. The parallel should make us pause.
---------------------------
For further reading on the
subject, we recommend Mohammed and the Rise of Islam by D.S. Margoliouth;
Muslim Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab, 1947 by Gurbachan Singh
Talib; Hindu Temples: What happened to Them, 2 Volumes; The Calcutta
Quran Petition by Chandmal Chopra; Jizayah and the Spread of Islam by
Harsh Narain; Muslim Separatism: Causes and Consequences by Sita Ram Goel.
All these have been published by Voice of India.
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