Books

Half A Chiaroscuro

Hasan surveys too vast a canvas of the Islamic world. The result: a monochrome portrait with grim patches.

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Half A Chiaroscuro
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Mushirul Hasan’s book, the latest in a series of hurriedly-put-together manuscripts, is an attempt towards that understanding. "At the heart of this book," he writes, "is an endeavour to articulate a vision of Islam, rather the many different kinds of Islam instead of the frightening monolithic popular perceptions, living in harmony with other faiths and of the Muslims, inheritors of the great Indian civilisation, living in a pluralist milieu."

This is where the difficulty arises. Hasan fails to see the distinction between Islam as religion and Islam as culture. Islam is a religion and like other world religions, it seeks to articulate a monolithic vision of a good life. That this vision was never sustained or actually realised and theological pluralism arising out of differences over interpretation fragmented the collective and monolithic Islamic vision is not denied. Culturally, however, Muslims have always remained divided and fragmented because of adoptive changes that faith had to accept as the religion spread into differing geographical and ecological areas.

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Hasan surveys a vast canvas, ranging from the passionate debates over the construction of Islam both in the 20th century and in the contemporary writings of Islam scholars; the appropriation of Islam by the orthodoxy, both religious and secular, for constructing a separate Muslim nationalism; the alleged clash of civilisation and the moderate effort since Independence to construct a vision for Muslims in constitutional India. What emerges in the process is a sketchy picture with yawning gaps. For example, while discussing the construction and articulation of a distinct Muslim identity to raise the bogey of Muslim nationalism, Hasan completely overlooks the administrative and legal processes of the colonial rulers to divide et impera. From the early part of the 20th century, the colonial rulers adopted a consistent policy whose avowed aim was to cultivate distinct, monolithic cultural identities. The colonial rules by the Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee Act of 1932 fixed boundaries of who might be a Sikh. Likewise, by the passage of the Shariat Act of 1939, the colonial rules set the boundary of who might be a Muslim. The same purpose was achieved by the post-colonial state by the so-called Hindu Code Bill, before which there had been no definition of who is a Hindu.

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Merely dismissing the so-called militant as a wayward individual or the entire phenomenon of Islamic terrorism as a distortion of the inherited greatness of a tolerant Islam is inadequate to understand the mindset of the militant or terrorist Muslim. Clearly, the Muslim militant is not a traditionalist content to live according to the Islamic vision of a good life. At heart, he is a modernist who wants to come to terms with the modern world in terms of the message of Islam as he interprets it in the light of contemporary pressures. If one has to understand Islamic militancy or terrorism, then one must heed the many developments deeply and significantly impinging on Muslim lives in the contemporary world with its unprecedented pace of social transformation. Hasan shies away from carrying forward his discussion in this direction. The result is a bland understanding of Muslim militancy and contemporary Muslim predicament.

Finally, Hasan reposes too much faith in the Congress for sustaining secularism, on which Muslim moderation in the future would remain heavily contingent. The Congress today is a poor copy of its Nehruvian version and to think that the party’s commitment to secular ideology remains as strong is to live in a fool’s paradise. In the long run, the sustainability of secularism can only be assured by the vast masses of Indians and the ability of the State to ensure continued secularisation of society. If the Indian masses abandon secularism, not only Muslims, but all Indians would be deeply affected and the historical greatness of India as a civilisation would be severely eroded.

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