Fuelling minority complex among Indian Muslims
http://www.sulekha.com/news/nhc.aspx?cid=444834
My good friend M J Akbar raises a question in his introduction to late Dr
Rafiq Zakarias seminal book Indian Muslims: Where Have They Gone Wrong? that
is at once fundamental and flummoxing. At what point in the last thousand
years, he asks, did Indian Muslims become a minority? In terms of
numbers, they have always been a minority. Muslims didnt constitute more than
30 per cent of Indias population even at the time of Partition. However, if
the term minority connotes discrimination, disempowerment and systemic
injustice by the majority community, history gives a big jolt to our
understanding of Muslims as a minority.
For did Muslims consider themselves a minority in this sense during the
Mughal empire? Or during the reign of other Muslim rulers? Akbar writes: As
long as Muslims felt that they were an important, and even decisive, element of
the ruling group they did not feel that they were a minority, a term that
implicitly condemns a community to the margins. Even a Badshah that wobbled was
better than no Badshah at all. Not that all Muslims shared power and enjoyed
prosperity under all those strong or wobbly Muslim rulers. The socio-economic
status of most of them was indistinguishable from that of a majority of their
Hindu brethren. Yet, neither rich nor poor Muslims identified themselves as a
minority.
Were Muslims a minority during the British rule? To think so is to posit
that the Hindus felt liberated and empowered when the British enslaved India
with the collapse of the Mughal empire. A patently absurd supposition, indeed.
Lets come to the post-Partition era, when two Muslim nations were carved out
of what was once a united India. Did Muslims become a minority in the sense
of being condemned to the margins in the truncated, but democratic and
secular, India? Not at all.
Indian Muslims do face some Muslim-specific problems that no sensitive Hindu
can deny. These, unfortunately, are problems arising out of history-induced
prejudices that often colour the Hindu attitude towards Muslims, and vice
versa. For example, I have a Muslim friend in Mumbai, a reputed professional,
who was denied office space when the owner of the building learnt that he is a
Muslim. But I also know of Hindu traders in mixed areas selling off their shops
and houses to Muslims when their neighbourhood started to become predominantly
Muslim. This kind of segregation bodes ill for social harmony and national
integration. But the point to note is that there is nothing either in Indias
socio-religious ethos or in our Constitution and laws that legitimises unjust
and discriminatory treatment of Muslims.
Sadly, a systematic effort has been underway to create and sustain a minority
syndrome among Indian Muslims, persuading them to believe that they have been
wronged in post-1947 India. Pakistans ruling establishment aided this
propaganda for several decades after Partition because this notion indirectly
justified the creation of Pakistan as a separate Muslim nation. (Akbar mentions
how the Muslim League leadership turned a minority complex into a separate
nation.) But what is astounding, even alarming, is that some of our own
parties, solely with an eye on Muslim votes, seek to keep the minority
complex alive among Indian Muslims, thus perpetuating the pernicious notion of
India as a nation that is an uneasy admixture of a majority and a minority.
Examples, old and recent, abound religion-based reservation for Muslims;
legislative and administrative protection to Bangladeshi infiltrators in Assam;
Muslim census in the Armed Forces; and the UPA Governments proposed 15-point
programme for minorities, with a dubious provision for population-based
minority quota in government spending (something like Muslim Budgeting on the
lines of Gender Budgeting). All these are designed to convey a simple message
to Indian Muslims: Yes, you are separate. You are discriminated against. You
are unsafe. We alone will protect you. Therefore, vote for us.
This kind of dishonest wooing of Muslims as a permanent minority hasnt
benefited Muslim masses. Instead, it has led to three undesirable consequences.
It has strengthened the hands of communal forces in Muslim society. It has
prejudiced and further communalised the mindset of a section of Hindus, who
already harbour many negative perceptions about Islam and Muslims. Thirdly, at
the political level, the perversion of secularism for the sake of Muslim votes
has made parties like the BJP, which are constantly dubbed anti-Muslim by its
opponents, ignore Indian Muslims legitimate concerns, thereby alienating them.
Dr Zakaria, a great patriot who spent his entire political life as a devoted
Congressman, has this to say in his book: After Independence, Indian Muslims
became a pawn in the hands of political parties and were manoeuvred merely to
obtain their votes. This so angered the communal Hindus that they mounted an
India-wide pro-Hindu and anti-Muslim campaign. He remained committed to the
ideal of Hindu-Muslim unity throughout his life. But he was a sad man when he
passed away in July last year, pained by the divisive and confrontational
nature of Indian politics, disillusioned by the unprincipled conduct of his own
party, and heartbroken by Muslim politics in India both before and after
Partition. That pain and sadness showed on his face in his last TV appearance,
a panel discussion (in which I too participated) on the Jinnah debate triggered
by L K Advanis Pakistan visit.
Hence, this column is a belated but heartfelt tribute to someone I deeply
admired and frequently interacted with. Its appropriate to close it by
recalling Dr Zakarias sane words: A gigantic effort is now needed to check
and replace the present divisive pattern of politics by a broadbased common
brotherhood, which does not recognise any distinction of caste and creed.
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